The West Wind Howls
by Snakefire1
Summary: Separatism. To Canadians, the word brings back memories of the October Crisis, or Quebec's many revolutions; but what happens when a different province entirely threatens to tear the country apart?
1. Chapter 1

**The West Wind Howls**

A Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfiction By Snakefire

 **CHAPTER ONE**

* * *

 _A storm on the prairies. It's a hell of a sight. You can see it for miles, building and growing and raging in the distance as it approaches you. It's vast and unstoppable, a mountain of towering clouds blacker than night, carrying rain or hail or snow or sleet; an arsenal of deadly weapons, all ready to rain upon you like the judgement of god._

 _And then there's the wind._

 _It rages across the flat plains, howling and screaming in its indignant fury and drowning out the cries of all in its path. It blows the flags from the poles, the buildings to boards, the bones of the earth to dust._

 _And yet it is not often that the west wind howls._

* * *

It was late afternoon in Kingston, the dying September sunlight shining in wheeling shafts through the ancient windows of the meeting hall. The government building that the Provinces were seated in wasn't some wing of Ontario's legislature, but a historic thing of stone and mahogany, steeped in the British mentality of opulence.

The more relaxed atmosphere of past meetings was long gone, the current hall charged with a palpable sense of indignation. Not from all the provinces; PEI had taken to counting the squares on the ceiling, and Manitoba was playing Angry Birds on his phone as Ontario droned on about something to do with oil and gas. Or something.

"Any questions?"

Ontario's voice echoed through the spacious hall, his light brown eyes going over each of the provinces in turn. There was a lot of nodding from the Maritimes and Québec, as he expected; BC and Manitoba's approval he had also anticipated. Saskatchewan was his usual stoic self, his face a hard stone mask, nearly impossible to read. The glint of irritation in his green eyes betrayed him, telling Ontario all he needed to know of the farmer's opinion.

Newfoundland was aghast, and on the cusp of real outrage- but before the fisherman could rise to his feet and let his opinion of Ontario's proposal thunder through the meeting hall and shake the roof's timbers, Alberta stood.

Ontario gulped.

She had said nothing through his entire spiel, staying as stoically quiet as her twin brother. But her face. It was her face that betrayed her unending rage, betrayed a fury that Ontario hadn't seen...well, since the last time Manitoba lost his shit, actually. And considering Manitoba schooled the prairie twins in the subjects of Rage and Hating Ontario, that was hardly surprising.

Alberta was looking down at the table, blue eyes hidden beneath the brim of her cowboy hat. But he could see her shaking. He could see her shaking with fury.

"You propose to shut down the oilsands."

It wasn't a question. It was a statement.

Ontario sighed.

"No, Alberta, that is not what I'm proposing. Some higher royalties, less licenses issued, higher restrictions on-"

"You're asking to shut down the oilsands."

"-An' me offshore drillin'-" Newfoundland interjected, before being swiftly cut off. Alberta looked up, staring straight into the elder province's eyes.

"Shut it, Newf."

Newfoundland took a step back, legitimately frightened of the young whippersnapper for the first time in his long, long life.

And Alberta turned and looked Ontario right in the eyes.

"Ten years." She said flatly, "It's been ten years of this shit. Look at me, Ontario. Fucking look at me. I can't do this anymore."

Alberta and Saskatchewan were young provinces, and their bodies should have reflected that- babyfaces that occasionally got them carded when buying booze and smokes, free of wrinkles and worry. But Alberta was...gaunt. Tired. Sick.

She coughed a few times, the sound echoing off the ancient oak beams of the roof.

"It's been ten years since you...you...you refused me." She hissed, eyes narrowing, "Ten years of forcing me to go on like this, ten years...and now you want to take away the only thing keeping me alive? Your environmental **_BULLSHIT_** HAS SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING ELSE I FUCKING HAVE!"

"Alberta, I-"

"I SHOULD BY ALL RIGHTS BE A HAVE-NOT PROVINCE, ONTARIO. TEN YEARS AGO I SUNK THAT LOW, AND WHY?! BECAUSE OF A RETARD GOVERNMENT, AND _YOU. YOU AND YOUR FUCKING CRONIES IN OTTAWA, YOU SCUM-SUCKING, MONEY-STEALING,_ _ **PARASITE!"**_

The word "parasite" echoed through the hall in silence.

Alberta opened her mouth to continue with her rant, but Ontario cut her off.

"Alberta, Alberta- please- please stop. Let's be reasonable about this- Calm down and tell us what's wrong-"

Alberta twitched.

"what's wrong?" she hissed, eyes narrowing, "You've had **_TEN FUCKING YEARS_** TO LISTEN TO WHAT'S WRONG!"

Ontario started talking again, but Alberta wasn't listening. She was staring straight at Québec. Staring at him with an almost predatory gaze, face hard and judgemental. The expression on her face was enough to make the Frenchman shiver and stare at his watch.

 **"I'm going to separate."**

Time stopped.

Ontario's eyes bugged out at those four little words, instantly thrown decades into the past. When a certain other madman had said those very words to him right before attempting to tear the country apart.

The only difference was that Québec had said them in French.

The entire meeting fell silent as Alberta slipped on her coat, grabbed her briefcase, and walked for the door.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Hey All! I'm back after an eternity of being dead to the world. Sorry about that. But I'm back, and here's some alternate history/What if type fiction! Kinda. You can think of this as a straight-up AU if it makes you feel better._

 _Next chapter will be posted tomorrow! I know, because it's already written! Hah!_

 _Comments, Follows, and Favourites are greatly appreciated!_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two

* * *

Alberta continued walking down the hallway, staring straight ahead. She completely ignored the sound of feet running behind her- what reason did she have to care for them? They were...

As her boss said, they were parasites.

The word always seemed to float around the fringes of her thoughts whenever Ontario opened his fat fucking mouth, and even moreso with Québec.

"Allie! Sis, wait!"

Alberta stopped walking and turned around. Well, parasites...and Saskatchewan. Her twin. He knew how to work. He knew what was what.

"Yeah?" she drawled, thoughts seemingly somewhere else, "Somethin' wrong?"

Saskatchewan stopped just in front of her, looking worried.

"Sis, sis you can't just...leave like that!" he spluttered, staring at her with wide eyes, "You can't just-"

"I can't do what? Leave the meeting? Not much point sticking around those louts, brother. Honestly, I swear you're the only one around here I can trust..." she muttered, looking down as her phone started to buzz in her pocket.

"No- That's not- not what I meant-" the normally soft-spoken farmer struggled to find the words that seemed to be hovering just out of his reach, the words that would succinctly describe his feelings.

"I- just, you can't...you can't just...say you're separating like that- That's serious, that's-" words, words, they wouldn't come. He didn't want her to leave them, and yet...and yet. He should have seen this coming a mile away...

Alberta pulled her phone out of her pocket, utterly ignoring her twin's last few words, and answered the call.

"Hey, boss. What's up?"

Saskatchewan's face darkened.

Boss.

That damn premier Corvus had done something to his sister. Before that last election, she'd been herself, but now she was...off, slightly. Always complaining about the east...moreso than was normal for her. And there was a hate behind it that...Saskatchewan couldn't put his finger on precisely what was wrong, really. But he'd known this woman long enough to tell that all was not well with his twin.

"Yeah, I'm still here, but I ditched the meeting..nah, didn't stay for the whole thing..." she had turned away from him now, to talk to that goddamn premier. He'd met mister Corvus himself, once. His sister had raved about him, how he was so nice, how he was finally going to turn the province's luck around...and when he'd met mister Corvus, that man had chilled Saskatchewan down to his very bones.

"Sis...please listen to me..."

Alberta didn't respond; her boss was telling her something, and she was nodding along intently. Finally after what seemed like forever, she hung up and turned back to her twin.

"What? Somethin' wrong, Flatlander?" she said with a gentle smirk, moving so she could dig her elbow into his side in a friendly manner. The nickname did nothing to change the fact that her mood shift was about as smooth and natural as whiplash.

"Sis...That boss of yours...There's something wrong with that guy." Saskatchewan said slowly, running a nervous hand through his straw-coloured hair, "And...I'm worried about you..."

Alberta shrugged. "I'm worried about me too, bro. But you don't need to worry at all. Mister Corvus is a great man. We'll get this shit straightened out, don't you worry."

"...I...Sis, you...you said you were going to..."

"Separate? Yeah, but hey, it happens, right? We all lose our cool sometimes, Sask." Her words were smooth as honey, patter intended to soothe his nerves...but since when was Alberta a liar? To him, of all people?

"...Sis...you don't joke about separating like that. Even in a fit of rage..." He said quietly, not believing a word that she said. It was hurting his heart, to think that his own twin didn't trust him anymore.

"...I...well, I..." She was struggling for words now. Saskatchewan reached out and planted a firm hand on both her shoulders, looking straight into her eyes.

"Sis. Listen to me. Please, please don't joke about separating like that ever again. That's not...that's not funny. It's not. And it's not an acceptable threat either." He said slowly and carefully, watching her closely.

It had to be...a slip of the tongue, right? She was always one for overreacting...perhaps...?

No. It couldn't be.

They didn't joke about separation. Not after what happened to Québec.

Down that road lay madness. Québec had said as much, years later. It was always a divisive issue, always, and it was like having hundreds of voices in your head having a screaming match over who was right. And a corrupt premier...that would only exacerbate the issue.

But his sister was nodding in agreement, and it seemed genuine enough. Saskatchewan let go of her tentatively, wanting to pull her back into the meeting. Was it an act? Was his twin going mad?

Or was he thinking too much on this? Fuck, he'd been in that meeting too long. He needed a beer and some football, STAT.

"...Hey, uh...Allie?" he asked awkwardly, "...Listen, you wanna wait here? I need to go get my coat..."

His twin beamed. "You gonna ditch too, eh? Look how I've corrupted you!"

Saskatchewan smiled weakly and nodded, running back to the meeting hall for his coat.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Again, this is an AU. Also, since I know everyone loves to hate on Notley: All the politicians depicted in this work are totally and completely fictional. I promise._

 _So here we go again! The bulk of this story is already written up, but there's a bunch of editing I want to do to it before releasing it into the wild._

 _Next time: Cowboy hats and football!_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter three**

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in Calgary..._

The personification of the city of Calgary was a handsome fellow, if a bit empty between the ears. Brown hair, blue eyes, a prominent chin and a winning smile, all crowned by a pristine white cowboy hat that was his pride and joy.

He was still handsome, even as he sat on the couch next to his brother, chanting "FUMBLE! FUMBLE!" at the TV Screen with unbridled glee.

His brother, Edmonton, was unimpressed- the football game they were watching was the Edmonton Eskimos versus the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and Cal was rooting for the 'Riders for no other reason than to piss him off. Like Alberta, Edmonton's eyes were also blue, but he wasn't quite as dashing a figure as his wannabe cowboy of a brother. The permanent stubble he couldn't seem to shake off nor form into a proper beard didn't exactly help matters.

Edmonton sighed deeply, taking a swig of beer and smacking his brother in the back of the head, knocking the hat off Calgary's douchenozzle.

"Knock it off, horsefucker. Do ya want the cup or not?" he snapped, taking another swig of beer.

Calgary was still smirking as he rubbed the back of his head and replaced his hat.

"'Course I want the cup. Emphasis on " **I** " because the Stamps rule, the Eskies drool, and I'm gonna rub my dick all over that cup when they win it." He said with an infuriating smugness to his tone.

Edmonton scowled and punched his brother in the shoulder.

"Who says they're gonna win it? Probably just gonna bite it again, like in 2012."

Calgary winced at the painful memory, and Edmonton smirked. He took another sip of his beer, basking in his little victory-

"Yeah, well, at least I ain't a liberal bastard like yourself, _Redmonton."_

Eddy spat out his beer. "WH-YOU TAKE THAT BACK, HORSEFUCKER!"

"REDMONTON!"

"KNOCK IT OFF, CAL!"

"DEADMONTON! REDMONTON! DEADMONTON! REDMONTON!"

Eddy sighed, willing himself to calm down, somewhat unsuccessfully. Calgary was an obnoxious fuck who delighted in tormenting him, but he was the capital. The capital was supposed to be...more...dignified...

Okay, he couldn't even * _think*_ that sentence with a straight face, what with Winnipeg's fondness for stabbing things and Victoria's fondness for getting toked off her ass.

"Very mature of you, Cal. You have all the class and refinement of a drunken teenager." Edmonton quipped dryly, turning his attention back to the TV- and frowning.

It was a commercial with footage of Premier Corvus in it- shaking hands, cutting red ribbons, that sort of thing. The voiceover was initially quite positive, praising the Reformation Party's actions and announcing their plans for the future, all of which sounded quite good- slashing taxes all across the board and renegotiating old trade deals, and so on- but about seven seconds in, the tone of the commercial changed, and the voiceover started saying some weird shit.

" _The government of Canada has singlehandedly put this province into a recession for the past ten years. We're sick of it, and you_ _ **should**_ _be too. That's why Premier Corvus and the Reformation Party of Alberta are proud to present our Alberta First plan..."_

This was accompanied by some little pictures of the province, the house of commons, and so on- but for a brief fraction of a second, edmonton could have sworn he saw the commercial….change. For just a single frame, the screen went black, with….something in the middle of it.

...He was probably just imagining things.

Edmonton tore his eyes away from the screen. Those commercials were really absorbing, and it wasn't unusual to see people who'd been walking from place to place stopped by a TV in a shop window that happened to be playing one. Which was a bit odd, since as far as he could tell, they were just regular political commercials; the truly peculiar part was that they were still showing them on TV, a full year after the election.

On the one hand, it was nice for a government to be open with what it was doing; and to sweeten the deal, premier Corvus had come out with a personal expense sheet showing that he had personally bankrolled the commercials out of his own pocket, taking not a penny from the taxpayer.

But still…

He looked over at his brother, more than a little concerned. Calgary was staring at the TV, mouth hanging just slightly open- Transfixed by the commercial completely. His eyes were glazed over and his posture had started to slouch slightly, and it sent a shudder down Edmonton's spine.

"Hey, Cal. Snap out of it, bro. You gay for Corvus or something?" Edmonton said, snapping his fingers in Calgary's face.

The city snapped out of it with an audible "BWUH?!" and shook his head, looking at Edmonton for a few seconds in befuddlement.

"I-wh- no! Nah, I ain't gay for nothing, man. Especially not that creep." Calgary reached up and adjusted his cowboy hat, carefully avoiding looking at the commercial. "He's just...ugh. I don't like that guy."

"Eloquent." Edmonton commented dryly, "But I have to agree. Alberta took me to meet him once, and...jesus, that man was..." Edmonton paused. He wasn't frightening, he wasn't cold...he was... "Fake. He seemed fake. But...she likes him, I guess?"

Calgary scowled, looking at a much more normal commercial for toothpaste. "Nah, Eddy. I'm telling you, that guy is _fucked in the head_. You hear what he had to say about my mayor? What a douche."

Calgary's mayor was a woman by the name of Chloe Zhang, and was greatly beloved by the whole city for her openness, honesty, and transparent leadership. Every time council had made a decision that could potentially rub the city the wrong way, she'd defer and hold an open session where the public were free to voice their concerns. She had managed to repair much of the city's infrastructure without raising taxes, a feat in and of itself.

Edmonton thought on it a bit, taking another sip as they resumed the game.

"Yeah, didn't he call her a traitor or something?" Edmonton guessed. It was a vague recollection, from a year ago...for some reason it was kinda fuzzy in his mind.

"You bet he did. All 'cause she called him on trying to push something through that would prevent people from moving here from out east. Like, what the fuck, man? That Corvus guy is retarded. You can't do that shit when you're premier!"

He was about to on, but Calgary's phone started to ring, interrupting his rant. He immediately answered it, without even bothering to check the number.

"Hello?" Calgary said casually, preparing to hang up on the inevitable telemarketer.

"Hello, Calgary."

He froze.

"H-Hi, premier Corvus. What...what a surprise. How...how's it going?" The city asked nervously. Something about that guy's voice just unnerved him, and Edmonton had gone white as a sheet next to him.

"Oh, it's going just fine, Calgary, my boy. I was wondering if you could put your brother on the line? He seems to have turned off his phone, is all. And I would like to ask him what time is best for him." The premier spoke smoothly, and sweetly, and Calgary wasn't buying it. He handed the phone over to Edmonton, looking at his brother with great concern.

Edmonton listened to the premier talk for a few minutes, nodding along, and mumbled something by way of a response before hanging up. He'd gone white as a sheet- and was visibly shaken.

"I...Cal, what kind of meeting requires me to have the next three days free?" Edmonton asked weakly, "I'm...I'm scared. He wants to talk to me one-on-one."

"For three fucking days?" Calgary echoed, "Yeah, that's not weird at all. Any way you can get out of it?"

"Not that I can see...Cal, I don't know what to do. I'm worried."

Calgary put his empty beer on the table.

"Not much you can do. Tell you what, if it's that worrying to you...I'll arrange a meeting with some clients up at west Ed while you're talking to him. That way, I'm only a short drive away if shit goes wrong." And since that sounded a bit too nice for Calgary's tastes, he added, "Which it probably will, since all _little girls_ are scared of big bad premier Corvus."

Edmonton smiled at the gesture, ignoring the insult. "I...actually, I think I'll take you up on that. It's this Thursday. Think you can handle that?"

"You got it, girlie."

"Oh, _fuck you."_

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _OH NOES CITY OC'S RUN FOR THE HILLS BEFORE THEY EAT YOUR FLESH AND UNBORN CHILDREN RAAAARGH_

 _But seriously, I promise that Cal and Eddy are plot-relevant. Please don't hate me, I'm a dumb Albertan who likes dumb Albertan things._

 _Also, Calgary's opinions regarding the Liberal Party of Canada are entirely his own and in no way reflect the opinion of the author, who quite frankly fails to give a shit._

 _Next time: Beer! Politics! What the fuck is the Reformation Party even!_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter four**

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in Kingston..._

Saskatchewan took a sip of his beer, eyes locked on the TV screen behind the bar. There was an intensity in his gaze as he watched the Rider's offense carry the ball over the line.

He slammed his beer on the bartop and leaped to his feet, throwing both arms in the air with a jubilant whoop of "TOUCHDOOOOOOWN!"

The entire bar fell silent as all eyes fell on the man in a tasteful suit and tie and polished dress shoes who'd apparently just lost his fucking mind.

Saskatchewan coughed awkwardly, shrinking away from the sudden scorn of the bar's patrons and sitting down next to Alberta. He mumbled something to the effect of "m'frmR'gina…" by way of an explanation, shrinking himself down as much as possible.

The barkeep sensed a change in the wind, and decided to change the channel to the news- it was mid-afternoon anyway, and they were just replaying an old game. He set about disinterestedly swabbing down the bartop as the CTV news anchor in the background fish-mouthed away in silence about bike lanes in Ottawa or something stupid like that.

Saskatchewan sighed and continued to nurse his Pilsner, his favourite beer even if the rest of the world said it was swill. Fuck them, they didn't know what was good in life, anyway.

He took another hearty gulp, glanced at the screen- and his jaw dropped.

"I- could you please turn the sound on?" he asked the barkeep, pointing at the screen, "I- I need to hear this-"

The barkeeper just rolled his eyes and grabbed the remote, turning up the volume from muted to about 6 or so. "Just 'cause it's mid-afternoon," he said, "I'm muting it again after this, buddy."

Saskatchewan nodded.

The screen showed footage of a protest going on in Calgary- a big one, outside city hall. People were chanting slogans at the top of their lungs, seemingly in little clusters. There was no rhyme or reason to who was there- it seemed the whole city had turned out to block the road, wave signs, and chant their slogans at the camera.

 ** _"FUCK! OFF! WE'RE! FULL!"_**

 ** _"STRONG AND FREE! STRONG AND FREE!"_**

 ** _"LET THE EASTERN BASTARDS FREEZE IN THE DARK!"_**

The last one was shouted by an angry-looking young woman with a brown ponytail. She'd tied an Alberta flag round her neck like a cape, and was proudly wearing a black cowboy hat.

The news anchor on the ground attempted to get a comment out of her; and it was...somewhat successful.

"What's the point of this protest? Why here?"

"SOME F**KER FROM OTTAWA'S IN THE BUILDING AND WE'RE HERE TO LET HIM KNOW JUST WHAT WE THINK OF HIM!"

The swear word was bleeped out, and Saskatchewan winced- yikes, these people were really angry. He looked over at Alberta despairingly. This...this was going on, right now, in her largest city.

They were a single thrown rock away from a riot.

He looked back at the newscast as the interviewer tried his luck at another vox populi, this time with an androgynous teenager in a white cowboy hat with short-cropped hair.

"Uh...sir , I guess? ... what is your opinion of the Canadian government?"

 ** _"BURN THE FUCKING PARLIAMENT TO THE FUCKING GROUND!"_**

Saskatchewan had seen enough. He turned over to his sister, eyes wide.

"A-Alberta- the newscast- I-"

Alberta rolled her eyes.

"Sasky, I've known about this shit for weeks. It's just a small amount of folks who are with these freaks. I'm fine, brother."

Saskatchewan narrowed his eyes. He didn't believe her.

"...has that premier of yours...doesn't his platform include...separation on the agenda?" he asked quietly, looking her in the eyes.

His sister stared right back, a strange coldness in those pools of blue.

"Yeah, I think it does. What about it? The Alberta Separation Party is a fucking joke, brother. Maybe Mister Corvus wants to leave, maybe those people want to leave, but most of my people almost certainly won't want to go."

Saskatchewan stared at her, dumbstruck.

"You yourself said you were going to-"

Alberta shrugged. "Look, I was pissed off, okay? Jesus, lay off me, Sasky. You're worse than Ontario, honestly."

Again, it was wrong. The words were right, the face was wrong. There was something about this whole situation that had Saskatchewan deeply unnerved.

"...I...okay. So you're not separating. Fine." He said, deciding it was best to drop the issue for now and move on to something else.

Like that freaky premier of hers.

"So...that Corvus guy..." he said, testing the waters, "is it just me, or is he a real creep?"

He threw the line out there like chum for a shark. If she pounced on him like he'd just personally insulted Peter Lougheed himself, he'd have all the proof he needed.

"W- are you kidding me!? Corvus is a great man, Saskatchewan, and you're an idiot. He's gonna turn my luck around, just you fucking wait."

Yup. That wasn't suspicious at all. At least she didn't try to punch him, like that time he threw shade on Ralph Klein.

Saskatchewan took another sip of his pilsner.

Either Alberta was being lied to, (highly unlikely, since she could literally feel when her people were pissed off the same way she could feel a cut on her palm) or she was in denial about the gravity of the situation. Saskatchewan found it peculiar that she was jumping to defend Corvus when, as far as he could tell, the man hadn't even done anything of note in his year in office.

What the hell was going on with his sister?

It was then that both the twins noticed the barkeep staring at them.

"...Hang on, did you just call him _Saskatchewan?!"_ The human echoed, looking at them both like they were possessed.

The twins looked at each other, and they both pulled a twenty from their wallets, slapping the green bills on the counter in unison before booking it out of the bar without so much as a backward glance.

The barkeep sighed.

"Fuckin' Prairie freaks...Shame my boss won't let me pocket tips."

* * *

 _Several weeks earlier..._

Alberta waited patiently at the door to the premier's office, checking her watch. He'd wanted to see her about something...something huge he was planning.

Without knowing why, she felt herself feeling remarkably excited. Something good was going to happen, she could just tell.

Mind you, that sort of optimism usually preceded the price of oil going in the gutter as it was wont to do, but hey, looking on the bright side of life, right?

Premier Corvus opened his office door at ten o'clock sharp- punctuality was one thing Alberta was very fond of, and this Premier's attention to the clock had landed him squarely in her good books.

He still wasn't better than Lougheed, though. Then again, that was hardly fair; it was like comparing a good hockey player to Wayne Gretzky. Nobody outclassed The Great One. _Nobody._

She breezed into his office, sitting down in the guest chair in front of the premier's desk and smiling out from under her cowboy hat. Corvus himself was taking a bit of time to do up the lock to his office door, but that was alright; he probably just wanted some extra privacy is all.

The premier was a stout man who preferred stout black waistcoats, with a hooked nose and jet-black hair. He had a thin set of lips and a pair of large, spade-shaped hands. And yet it was surprising how fast he could move, with a graceful stride instead of the ungainly waddle his build would suggest.

"Alberta, my dear!" he exclaimed cheerfully, a sparkle of light in his dark brown eyes, "I trust you've been doing better than you have been."

She nodded. "Certainly have, boss. I reckon my luck's gonna turn here real quick!"

What made Alberta say that, she didn't know. There was something...something that made her want to say that, something she couldn't put her finger on.

Whatever. Probably wasn't important then.

She looked around the gorgeous mahogany-panelled office, admiring the fireplace, the portraits and photos, and the gold-trimmed Alberta flag that stood proudly in the corner. She loved that flag.

The premier was messing about with some papers on his desk, pulling out a single folder from among the stack.

"That's good to hear, Alberta," he said finally, by way of a reply, "And It's interesting you feel like that, since today's the day we start a new...project, you and I." He smirked, offering the folder to her. It was a plain manila folder, no writing on the cover to indicate what it might be. It wasn't even that thick, just a few sheets in general.

Alberta opened it, raising an eyebrow.

Corvus continued, "I would like you to study the contents of that envelope tonight, my dear. And...you know I do detest giving you hard orders, but I am forbidding you from telling anyone besides me about the contents of that file, unless I specifically give you permission to tell a specific person. Am I clear?"

Alberta nodded a few times, almost robotically. "Yeah, got it."

Corvus smiled, sitting back in his chair. "Excellent. That's all I wished to say. Have a good day, Alberta."

She nodded and walked out of his office, waving good-bye before closing the door behind her.

As soon as she was gone, Corvus turned to the gold-trimmed picture frame he kept on his desk, nodding at it meaningfully.

The picture was of him, a much younger man, barely 15, and a tall woman beside him, her long blonde hair shining in the summer sun on the shores of the ocean. Even through the grainy photo, the woman's striking blue eyes could be seen.

"I'll make it right for you, mum. I promise." He whispered quietly, before turning back to his computer to write an email to that Chad Brawl character.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Oooh, the plot thickens!_

 _Updates will be a bit slower from here on out- the whole story's written, kinda, but I'm going in a different direction with this second draft._

 _Fun fact, I didn't make up a single one of those slogans that my crazed fellow Calgarians are screaming._

 _Also, did you catch the author cameo?_

 _Next time: Calgary ragequits! Saskatchewan might also ragequit! Someone's gonna ragequit!_

 _Comments, Follows and favourites are greatly appreciated!_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

* * *

 _Several days later..._

"You did WHAT?!" Calgary screamed into his phone, about to blow a blood vessel.

"ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE, WOMAN!?"

Alberta sighed and placed the phone on the hotel bed as Calgary had his little shitfit on the other side of the country. He didn't understand.

Hopefully he would soon. Edmonton certainly would by the time she was back.

"I told them my thoughts on the current economic situation," she said curtly once the muffled howling had ceased, inspecting her nails, "And before you ask, I skipped today's meeting."

"WHAT!? GET YOUR ASS TO THAT FUCKING MEETING BEFORE THEY MAKE IT ILLEGAL TO FRACK OR SOME SHIT, YOU DUMB FUCKING BITCH!" Calgary was beside himself with rage, literally frothing at the mouth. She was so lucky she was in Kingston and he was here in Edmonton, or so help him, he'd...swat at her uselessly awhile. Until she got the message. Yeah.

Alberta responded by hanging up.

Calgary wanted to chuck his phone to the ground and stamp on it a few dozen times- grinding it into dust under his cowboy boots seemed like a good idea. But the poor phone hadn't done anything but relay his province's mindboggling stupidity; what the hell had she been THINKING?!

With that, his long-suffering phone dinged, letting the city know he'd got another text. He sighed and picked it up- it was from Edmonton.

 **Eddy: bro this is freaking me out**

 **Eddy: the party is creepy as shit**

 **Eddy:** **Send RCMP**

Calgary sighed. He'd lied about being able to schedule a meeting up here and was literally just camped out in this hotel room waiting for Eddy to text the agreed code word, which was "puck". Calgary had tried to convince him the absolute necessity of texting him "Oilers Suck" since, you know, then he would KNOW Eddy was in trouble! Absolute, life-threatening danger! But no, his brother had to go and be practical with letters and shit, and how long things would take to type in a tight spot.

How boring.

Calgary grabbed a beer from the minibar- hey, he was rich, what was the harm in it- and sat back on the couch to watch some...manly-man TV. Like House Hunters. Fuck you, it was manly as shit.

* * *

 _Meanwhile..._

Edmonton looked up from his phone nervously, still cooling his heels outside the premier's office. He'd been avoiding the Legislature (or Leg', as the locals were more likely to say) like the plague for almost a year. The reformation party were really...creepy.

They seemed to have a uniform, for a start. A jacket, like the serge of a mountie, but...not red. That weird sea-green they loved so much, with silver buttons. Some of them even had inverted silver chevrons on the arms, for fuck's sake.

They seemed friendly enough, but boy, did he feel out of place. He'd debated that morning whether or not to dress up for the meeting, and eventually decided to flout convention and just wear his old Gretzky jersey instead. Signed by The Great One himself, too, in the prime of his life and at the peak of his career. It was his absolute favourite item of clothing, equivalent in his mind to a tuxedo or royal robes.

The opposition seemed to flit about the marble halls nervously, keeping their heads down- one could spot them easily by their suits and skirts and summer dresses, and the way they walked as if they knew that this was not their place, that this house was merely one they occupied rather than belonged in.

Edmonton shuddered. Trust your gut, the Mounties at the fort had always told him. Back when he was just a wood-walled fort on the frontier. And right now, his gut was telling him to get up and run for the airport and book himself a charter flight to fucking Tuktoyuktuk, departing immediately.

He decided to text Calgary to blow off some steam.

 **Eddy: u sendin the gf pics of ur tiny-ass tower again man**

There, that should get him nice and steamed up. A bitchfight was good for the nerves, or so he'd been told by, well, Calgary.

To Edmonton's surprise, he got an immediate response- with a photo attached.

 **Eddy: if thats a pic of ur dong im gonna fuckin unincorporate ur ass**

 **Cal: wouldnt u like 2 know ;)**

Edmonton shuddered and opened the file.

It was...well, it was the Calgary Tower. But at night, with the new lights flashing all the colours of the rainbow.

Edmonton rolled his eyes.

 **Eddy: whyd u let them put glowsticks on it man**

 **Eddy: it looks stupid**

 **Eddy: glow in the dark dingdong**

 **Eddy: like why**

 **Cal: dont knock the lights man**

 **Cal: they bring in the bitches**

The secretary suddenly stood up from her desk.

"Mister Edmonton? Premier Corvus would like to see you now."

Edmonton stood up, firing off one last quick text.

 **Eddy: meetin time. Later. I hope.**

 **Cal: dead man walking ;)))))**

Edmonton groaned and pocketed his phone. Leave it to Cal to harsh up his mellow real good.

* * *

Calgary grabbed his second beer from the minibar and pondered whether it was poor form to turn up to a provincial legislature while hammered and holding a large rifle. What, he'd borrowed it from Revelstoke for bears, okay?

As he cracked open his second beer, Calgary found himself wondering what Alberta had been up to those past few days.

Whatever. Probably dumb province shit, per usual.

* * *

 _A few hours later, in Kingston..._

Alberta lay back on her hotel bed, enjoying the privacy of her single-person suite. Ontario was good for exactly one thing, and that was renting enough rooms for ten people.

She opened the folder again, reading over the instructions for the umpteenth time. Her premier's plan was...strange. Well, okay, it was nonsensical. But...apparently it was going to help?

There was a single form in the folder, with some legalese printed on it that had been written to be impenetrably thick. Alberta normally didn't bother with legalese, because it was just easier to hire a lawyer to translate it into Not Bullshit English.

The one odd thing was the presence of three lines for signatures. She'd already signed the top line, as her boss had instructed her, but...the other two...

The thing about the sheet was that it had the look of something that was part of a larger document, like it had just been pulled from the bottom of the stack and stuffed in a folder for her. Alberta had a good idea of what the other...506? Jesus, that was a lot of paper...the other 506 pages were about, but for some reason, it didn't bother her in the slightest.

She rolled over and reached for the hotel's telephone to call the front desk- she'd taken an impromptu day off just for this mission, and it seemed she'd need to make a shopping trip just to get it done.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _-Locals of the city of Edmonton pronounce "Leg' " as "Ledge"- it's a shortened form of "Legislature". Because laziness._

 _Well look at me go! On no sleep, no less! Yay for sleep-deprived writing!_

 _Yeah, I'm gonna take a nap now._

 _Also, fun fact, the Calgary tower does in fact have glowly lights on the bottom, and it does indeed do a rainbow light show every night. It's pretty sweet._

 _Next Time: Corvus is weird! Saskatchewan is worried! Calgary is an idiot!_

 _Comments, follows and favourites are greatly appreciated!_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

* * *

Calgary's head had fallen on the remote at some point in the past few hours, changing the channel from HGTV to TSN, and now it was showing nothing but golf.

This would have been more of an issue if Calgary were anywhere approaching sober.

Instead, a line of bad decisions in the form of empty beer bottles were arranged in an initially neat and increasingly wobbly row down the center of the hotel's table. He was working on his...fifteventh...? beer, and giggling at the stupid announcer's accent- some kinda French guy, he figured.

"Shaddup, Frenshie!" he slurred at the screen, "'m tryna' watch shitty grash-hockey!"

Edmonton still hadn't texted him the word, and as the hours had ticked by, Calgary had gotten bored of surfing the internet for porn on his phone, or prank calling Whitehorse ("YUKON'S FALLEN OFF A CLIFF, YOU NEED TO GO HELP HIM!") or just staring at the ceiling. Lord knows he wasn't about to leave the hotel room- something about his face just made Edmontonians want to get in his grill and try to start some shit. Then again , the same could be said of Eddy on a visit in Calgary.

Something about their people and not liking the other guy at all. Calgary took another long swig of his fifteventh beer and the thought was soon forgotten.

God, he was really sleepy, wasn't he?

It was kinda...late...

Calgary yawned and sank down onto the couch's pillows, letting his eyes flutter shut.

"Jush...a quick...nap...sho I'll be ready ta reshcue...reshcue...Eddy..." he mumbled, placing his beer on the tabletop and passing out.

* * *

 _Several hours earlier, in Kingston..._

The sporting goods store had had everything Alberta needed, and she waited impatiently in the checkout line, impatiently fidgeting with the slim piece of metal in her hands.

Something...something was...

Something was really, really wrong back home.

She couldn't explain what it was, but at some point in the last hour, she'd started to feel a creeping dread in her guts. Something, something...it wasn't her people, they were...well, they were simmering away in indignant rage at the feds and the east, but they were on the whole alright, carrying on with their lives. Tapping the earth for its rich resources, building towering skyscrapers that glittered in the morning sun...but...

Edmonton. Something was wrong in her capital.

IT was her turn to pay, and she shoved the feeling aside. She put on a smile and paid for the object, privately groaning about Ontario's fucking PST as the cashier rang up her order. She cracked open her wallet and paid in cash, because the last thing she needed was anyone to know this transaction had happened.

On the way out of the store, she tore up the receipt and dropped the pieces in a nearby trashcan, breezing towards her rental car. The hotel's directions had been spot on; she hadn't been driving around Kingston in endless circles trying to find the damn place.

The car was a small hatchback, with Québec plates, no less; initially Alberta had balked at that, but as she pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road, she was secretly a bit grateful.

Now she could drive like an Albertan (I.E. a complete asshole) And the other drivers on the road had only to glance at her license plate for an explanation.

The drive was a short one, because no matter what size her vehicle, Alberta never could quite overcome her compulsion to speed just the tiniest little bit. Fortunately, there weren't any ghost cars or cops the whole way back to the hotel, and she slipped into the lone parking space that was available.

Alberta got out and locked the car behind her, slipping her purchase into her pocket- the last thing she needed was the hotel asking questions about it.

She waved to the concierge on the way in, breezing over to the elevators and tapping her foot impatiently. That uncomfortable feeling...it...it was back. It was back and it was stronger than it had been in the shop. She kicked at the polished tile floor with her boot as the elevator descended the last few floors, swallowing nervously.

What...what was happening to her capital...?

The doors opened with a 'ding', and she strode inside, pressing the button for the third floor and waiting patiently as the elevator doors closed and it started to climb.

The feeling persisted all the way back to her room, and she found herself laying on the hotel bed, staring at the ceiling and feeling...

Afraid.

She looked at her watch- the conference would be over soon, and she needed to get ready. Alberta pulled her purchase out of her pocket, carefully pulling it out of the plastic bag and looking it over.

She grasped the blade and pulled it out, the knife's folding mechanism snapping into place to secure the blade with a satisfying 'click'. It was about three inches long, with an anodized steel handle in orange- she was going to be "accidentally" losing it at the airport anyway to get rid of the evidence, so it wasn't the sort of knife she preferred, with a nice wood or horn grip on the handle.

Alberta stared at her own reflection in the brand-new steel, momentarily transfixed. Her head was starting to pound...that was never a good sign. What was happening to-

 _"_ _Parasites! Parasites, all of them! All of them, all of them!"_

Alberta jumped about a foot in the air with a muffled yelp of terror.

"He-Hello!?" she called to the empty hotel room, "Who- Who's there!?"

She held the blade out like the weapon it was, panting in shock and scanning the immediate area for someone who could have said that.

And...nothing.

She...she was alone in the room.

Alberta gulped.

Someone...someone had just...whispered those words. Where the hell else could they have come from?

She checked under the bed. Behind the curtains. In the bathroom. In the fucking cupboards, for crying out loud.

Was...was she going crazy?

* * *

 _Many hours later, in Edmonton..._

Calgary awoke with a start.

He'd passed out...five...minutes ago?

He saw his phone on the floor nearby and dragged himself to it, flipping it on and moaning at the sudden bright light- it was so painful, but the time-

The...the time...

He'd been out for almost an entire fucking DAY!?

He moaned in agony as his head started to pound, forcing himself to crawl towards the bathroom- hand over hand, nausea rising with every movement.

He managed to make it in time, lifting the toilet seat and rapidly emptying his stomach of the steak he'd had for lunch, not to mention all the alcohol.

After about the third or fourth heave, there wasn't anything left, and he hauled himself up to the sink to rinse his mouth out and splash some cold water on his face. As it happened, neither helped with the headache, but at least he didn't have that horrible sour taste in his mouth.

But his _head..._

Calgary stumbled out of the bathroom and towards the hotel's tiny kitchenette, filling a glass with water and chugging it and several like it down in very quick succession.

The brunette wanted to just curl up and go to sleep until it was less painful to be conscious of the world around him.

But...something was niggling at him in the back of his mind. He put the glass down and staggered to where he'd apparently passed out, scooping his phone off the floor and collapsing on the couch.

His stupid fingers input his password wrong three times, since the screen's brightness seemed to be trying to smash his head in with a brick; still, eventually he got the damn thing unlocked, and then tapped his messages.

It took Calgary a few seconds to read the trio of texts, and another few seconds to really comprehend their meaning.

 **Eddy: Puck**

 **Eddy:** **PUCK**

 **Eddy:** **PUCK PUCKppUCK MoHTERFKING PpUCK CalGRY**

Calgary swallowed deeply. He was going to fucking vomit again.

"...I fucked up. _"_

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Woo, chapter six! And with a full night's sleep, no less!_

 _This is the point in the story where the shit hits the fan, boys and girls. Hold on to something._

 _No promises for Next Time from here on out, guys. No spoilers. ;)_

 _As always, comments, follows and favourites are greatly appreciated! Seriously, your reviews give me life._


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

Saskatchewan walked out of the room and away from the single most awkward meeting of his entire fucking life.

That...they'd done nothing all day. Nothing but discuss whether or not it was even possible for Alberta to separate. The constitution granted her no special rights, none of the provisions or exceptions that Québec had.

And yet, of all the eastern provinces, it was Québec who seemed the most concerned.

 _"_ _Don't get me wrong,"_ He'd said, addressing the whole table, _"Alberta is a bitch and I detest her. I find her obnoxious and insufferable. That said, if she truly is going down that road...I've walked that road before. It's...nobody should ever have to follow my footsteps. That road is paved with stones of hate and madness, and it leads straight to hell."_

Québec was waiting outside the building, having left the meeting a few minutes earlier for a smoke. Saskatchewan walked over to him, leaning against the wall where the much taller Frenchman was leaning and putting his briefcase down.

Québec was a tall man- the tallest of all of them, actually- but unlike Ontario, his build was more slender, with long spiderlike limbs and graceful fingers. Always fashion-conscious, he kept his beard styled into a neat goatee; his wavy blonde hair seemed to mock the unruly mess Saskatchewan usually kept under his straw hat.

The farmer coughed awkwardly, waving some smoke out of his face.

"Hey, uh, Québec?" Saskatchewan spoke nervously, more out of fear for his sister than intimidation. Québec was not a very intimidating man, despite his size; Saskatchewan had seen a stiff breeze nearly knock the man over.

In fairness to Québec, Saskatchewan's definition of a "stiff breeze" was something to the effect of "Strong enough to blow away your tractor, but not your house."

Québec took another drag of his cigarette, and looked over at the farmer.

"Ouais?"

Saskatchewan sighed. "Look, I'm sorry to bother you like this, but...we need to talk. About Alberta, and what's going to happen to her, since you seem to think something is happening to her."

Québec sighed.

He opened his package of smokes and offered one to Saskatchewan, which he gratefully took; Saskatchewan coughed and mumbled something about having forgot his lighter back at home, and Québec rolled his eyes and fished out his cheap disposable.

Saskatchewan lit it up with a practiced ease, taking a long drag and blowing the smoke out into the dying summer sky.

He watched the other provinces trickle out of the meeting, waiting patiently for Québec to say something. But he didn't, and it was starting to get a bit awkward.

Until finally, finally Québec decided to speak, as soon as Ontario had gotten in his car and slammed the door closed.

"...You don't know what you're asking, Saskatchewan." Québec drawled, his French accent thick on his words, "You ask...you ask a story of me, a story that I 'ate to tell. A story of...madness."

Saskatchewan sighed and took another drag of his own cigarette.

"It's a story I need to hear, Québec. From you, not Ontario, not Canada, not Brunsie. _You."_ Saskatchewan looked right up into Québec's eyes, right through the Frenchie's glasses, the look in his gaze intense and fierce, "My sister...She...it's like she's following in your footsteps, without knowing it. And I need to hear from you what's going to happen to her. Unless you want another person to end up like you."

Québec scowled, smushing his cigarette into the brickwork and letting it hit the ground.

"...Fine." he snapped, gesturing for Saskatchewan to follow him, "But I want you to know zat your twin is a bitch. I want zat on record, before I start. And I am only doing zis because..."

Québec's voice trailed off as he tried to think of a reason. He reached into his pocket and ran his fingers across his rosary beads and the turquoise crucifix, finally sighing, "...Because I suppose...God would wish it." He said finally.

Saskatchewan nodded, crushing his cigarette against the bricks and holding onto it until Québec passed by a trashcan, where he discarded of it properly.

It was only when Saskatchewan heard the jangle of car keys that he knew where this was going.

His eyes went wide and he swallowed nervously. He'd been carpooling with Manitoba for the entire conference, and his fellow prairie province was faithfully waiting for him in the car, letting the engine idle so he could run the AC.

"Québec-"

"If you want to 'ear my story, come with me." Québec said calmly, "I don't want to tell it...where zey could 'ear me."

The bespectacled Frenchman jerked his head at Manitoba's car before climbing into his car, somehow managing to fit all six feet and four inches of limbs into the vehicle before slamming the door.

Saskatchewan sighed, tapping on Manitoba's window and gesturing at Québec's car. His brother's look of abject horror told the farmer all he needed to know about what Manny thought of carpooling with Québec, but before his elder brother could roll down his window to warn him away from it, Saskatchewan walked over to Québec's car and climbed into the passenger seat.

As soon as he'd slammed the door, Saskatchewan put on his seatbelt and took a few deep breaths.

"...So. What happened to you?"

* * *

 _Meanwhile, at the hotel..._

British Columbia groaned and flopped on the hotel bed, staring at the ceiling.

This shit was stressing her out. Alberta was losing it...but on the bright side, at least there was a big ole mountain range between her and her crazy sister.

BC sighed and opened her bag. Ontario was going to lose it on her for this one, since smoking in a hotel room was pretty well verboten, but goddamn it she needed this. She didn't know of a safe place to toke near the hotel where the cops wouldn't bust her, and it had been a week since she'd last had a joint.

The westernmost province cracked open her messenger bag and removed a small metal tin which had, a century ago, contained chewing tobacco, and popped the lid, admiring the five pre-rolled joints she'd stashed inside.

Getting them through airport security was always a pain, but her boss had finally caved and gotten her the necessary paperwork.

 _"_ _I can't stop you smoking it, I guess,"_ her premier had sighed, " _but at the very least I can stop you getting arrested all the damn time. If anyone asks, it's medical, and i had nothing to do with this, got it?"_

BC got it reaaaaaal good.

She lit it up with a cheap lighter from the airport's gift shop, taking a long, satisfied drag. Yeah.

...Whoops. Probably shouldn't smoke it near the bed.

She got up and flopped in the chair, taking another drag and giggling. Oh fuck yeah she'd needed this.

God, Onty was so uptight. Come to think of it, so was Alberta. She needed to just, fucking, have a drag and chill the fuck out.

BC flipped on the TV and started surfing channels, finding something to occupy her brain while waiting for the hallucinations to start. Those were... _usually_ fun. Except sometimes they really, really, REALLY weren't. But usually she had happy trips.

God, if she wasn't so stoned right now, she probably would have been cringing at the memory. The worst was when she'd hallucinated a zombie grizzly bear with chainsaw hands trying to saw her tits off.

Not fun.

BC took another drag, and a pretty butterfly floated from nowhere and started to fly around the room.

Yeah, this was gonna be a good trip.

* * *

 _Meanwhile..._

Saskatchewan was going to die.

He was going to die, here, in motherfucking Kingston, a thousand miles from his home.

Saskatchewan was used to his twin's terrifying driving- but Alberta was, at least, a good driver in the sense that she obeyed the rules of the road.

Besides the speed limit. Alberta's driving was scary because you were going damn near the speed of light and she would occasionally take phone calls while doing it.

Québec...was a whole different kind of scary.

Because whatever the faults in Alberta's driving, she drove a _big fucking truck._

And there was a certain comfort in that, Saskatchewan concluded, a certain comfort that Québec's small sedan absolutely DID NOT PROVIDE.

And Québec was telling him the fucking story, somehow, someway, while doing the fucking speed of light down a road that had a limit of 60 and OH GOD THEY WERE ON THE SIDEWALK **YOU CAN'T PASS ON THE SIDEWALK HELP**

But the story, the story was why he was risking his neck like this.

Québec jerked the wheel to cut a tractor-trailer off, looking somewhat pensive.

"...I suppose I should start at ze beginning, non?" he asked rhetorically, "back...well, not to where it all began, because zen we'd be 'ere for an 'our or so..."

He honked at some guy who was attempting a legal merge, shooting by his SUV and continuing.

"Let's with start with...ze beginning of ze October crisis, ouais?" Québec said, voice constricting as he mentioned those very dark days in that far distant October.

"...You already know ze story of what I...of what ze FLQ did, so...I'll just...tell you about what 'appened to me, and what's going to 'appen to your bitch of a sister."

Saskatchewan nodded as Québec blew through a red light, quietly praying to God in his best Ukrainian to not die in the next ten minutes.

Québec took a deep breath.

"It all started...well, with blowing up ze Montréal stock exchange, actually. Ze FLQ bombed it, and it was like...like breaking a seal, i suppose..." he said quietly, "...Well, not...breaking it. More...puncturing it. Poking it with a needle. Zat was ze point when...what was on ze other side of ze seal started to leak zrough."

Québec sped through a four-way stop, ignoring the chorus of honking horns, and continued on bold as brass.

"Ze leak...it was...I started to 'ear voices in my 'ead. Zey told me...'orrible zings, Saskatchewan. Zey told me ze world was out to get me, zey told me to do terrible zings to anyone who ot in my way...and zey argued with zemselves. All day. All night. All ze time, screaming, **"OUI! NON! _OUI! NON!_ " **

Québec was shaking as he said those words, pressing the accelerator all the way to the floor as they merged onto the highway.

Saskatchewan was about to protest, about to say that they didn't need to be on the highway to get back to the hotel, but Québec seemed to have more to tell him, and any situation where Québec wasn't required to really stop at all was a positive step.

"I...I fear zat Alberta may be starting to follow in my footsteps. And with zat premier of hers...I don't zink zis will end well, not at all."

Saskatchewan took a deep breath as Québec overtook a massive tanker truck, and asked:

"So...what comes next?"

Québec shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know 'ow far along she is. I don't even know if she will fall like I fell, Anglo. But, assuming ze pattern 'olds true, and she's already started to 'ear zeir ranting about oil or whatever Anglos rant about..."

Québec paused.

"...Zen she'll...she MIGHT...start to cave." He said quietly. "She might start to...give in, to listen to zeir demands...it's so 'ard, not to crack, not to cave, when all you can 'ear is endless screaming in both ears about 'ow zey're trying to kill you, make you die a thousand deaths before you've finished breakfast."

Saskatchewan nodded, a deep fear in his heart as Québec steered onto the off ramp.

"...I hope to god you're wrong, Québec." He said quietly, "For her sake, as well as ours."

Québec trundled to the top of the ramp and came to a complete and legal stop, waiting for the light to change from red.

"Moi aussi, Saskatchewan."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _I'm so sorry for my appallingly bad French accent, guys. But if Newfoundland gets his weirdass accent typed out in full, so does Quebec. We're an equal opportunities bonanza here._

 _I hope that was intelligible and enjoyable._

 _And now for the stuff so I don't get sued!_

 _Kids, please don't smoke, PLEASE don't do drugs (BC is immortal, you aren't) And please don't grow up and drive like Quebec. Quebec is not a good role model for driving._

 _As always, comments, follows, and favourites are greatly appreciated!_


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in Edmonton..._

Calgary groaned as he pulled into the nearest available parking space, still rubbing his head. One of the upsides to being an immortal personification was recovering from a hangover in record time, but the mildest symptoms seemed to linger on the longest. In any case, the light wasn't stabbing at his eyes or his brain anymore, so that was a definite upside.

He climbed out of his truck, slamming the door and locking it behind him. The last thing he needed was some asshole Edmontonian jacking his truck.

Calgary paused then, rolling his eyes up to look at his hat. That...wasn't exactly the most stealthy thing on the planet, really.

He unlocked his truck again and placed his pristine white Stetson on the driver's seat, nodding at the symbol of civic pride and slamming the door. Besides the hat, he was rather plainly dressed- a hoodie and jeans, and he'd swapped out his cowboy boots for runners. Just call him Edmontontian Edward, average citizen _du jour._

The only problem was his t-shirt, which was blazoned with the words CALGARY FLAMES around a flaming 'C', which would cause a few issues if he got too hot. But the hoodie was good, and as long as he didn't start to overheat, he'd be fine. Ish.

Checking to make sure he had his wallet, keys and phone, Calgary locked his truck up again and started to make his way from the back of the legislature to the front where the main entrance was. His truck had a pass for parking in the media section, but he didn't have a key to the back gates- only Alberta had that key.

He could hear someone giving what sounded like a speech to a large crowd, and Calgary peeked around the corner as soon as he was almost at the front of the building.

The crowd was huge, all arranged in neat, stately rows. Many wore the distinctive sea-green serge of the Reformation Party, and those that didn't wore t-shirts or jackets to match. A lot of the citizenry seemed to have turned out for the rally, and something about it made Calgary's skin crawl.

Someone had hung several huge blue banners off the front of the legislature, blazoned with the province's stylized wildrose symbol; with the collapse of the old Wildrose party, the Reformationists had taken their rose logo and incorporated it into their own iconography.

There was a woman giving a speech to the amassed crowd, and boy, was she confident.

The Minister of Education or whatever, wasn't she?

 _"_ _My fellow Albertans! I come to you today to announce the beginning of the end of the Empire of Canada. In her glory days she was a sight to behold, a bastion of peace, sanity and compassion for all the world to admire, but no more!"_

The woman slammed her fist into her podium, and the crowd roared in furious assent.

"Corruption, and neglect, and blatant abuse! That is the Canada we now reside in! And I ask you, is that the nation you wish to live in, Alberta?!"

The crowd seemed to lose it at that, a thousand people howling a unanimous **"NO!"** It was louder than a thunderclap, and it seemed to shake the columns of the legislature's facade.

Calgary gulped and watched on, eyes darting to the steps. Fuck, how was he gonna get in? He looked across the grounds-the rally was spaced between the fountains at the building's entrance, but past that, directly ahead, was the entrance to...if he remembered correctly, to a series of tunnels, one of which lead into the legislature itself, belowground.

That just left him with the task of sneaking by a rally of a thousand hate-crazed Edmontonians without being seen.

There was a statue of a Ukrainian family standing under a large tree a good thirty meters diagonal to him- he'd be in plain sight for the whole sprint, but with any luck, he could make it...or, alternatively, he could walk it.

Walk like you own the place, and people will assume you do.

Calgary swallowed the building bundle of nerves, fixed his eyes on the path behind the statue, and started to walk towards it, heart cantering.

"WE WILL BE FREE OF TYRANNY!" she declared, "WE WILL BE FREE OF A GOVERNMENT THAT CARES LITTLE FOR US, OF PROVINCES WHO DESPISE US! WE WILL BE FREE! WHAT SAY YOU, ALBERTA?!"

And Calgary was behind the statue, safe and sound and flipping the fuck out, and that's when they started chanting.

It was...terrifying.

A thousand voices, a thousand individual people with lives and hearts and souls all their own, chanting in a hypnotic, thundering unison.

 ** _"_** ** _STRONG AND FREE. STRONG AND FREE. STRONG AND FREE."_**

He could feel some of them, instinctually. As Calgary flitted from tree to tree, he could sense who among the crowd was one of his- like candles in the dark. Each soul glowed to him, and he could have, if he wished, stopped and focused and counted them all. They were connected to him more intimately than to Alberta; for as a city, people were all he had.

Calgary ignored the lights in the crowd, even if his extra sense was drawn to them; they might notice him, and right now he had bigger issues.

Like rescuing Edmonton.

He sprinted into the tunnel entrance, feeling their chant reverberating in his bones. And as he sprinted down the stairs, as he charged down the tunnel heedless of who might be in his path, he could still feel them chanting.

 _Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free._

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in Kingston..._

British Columbia laid back on her bed, giggling at the sparkly butterflies that were fluttering around her room and taking another hit of her joint. She'd needed this so badly, and it was one of her better trips in a long time. The raven-haired woman was so enraptured in her hallucinations that she didn't even notice the knock at the door until it turned into an aggressive pounding.

"Like, fuck man...I'm, like, coming..." she mumbled, walking over to the door to check who it was. The butterflies followed her, chittering to each other and making rainbows flit across the walls.

BC leaned in to look at the peephole, grinning hugely when she saw Alberta. She undid the lock and the chain, throwing the door open and grinning at her sister.

Alberta's face fell when she caught the scent of weed on the air, and before BC could protest, Alberta shoved her way into the hotel room and slammed the door behind her, latching it up.

"BC. I need you to sign this." Alberta had a folder in her hand with a pen in the other, the look on her face deadly serious. She needed to chill, majorly.

BC took another hit of her joint and blew the smoke in her sister's face, grinning lazily.

"Sure thing, dude. No problem. But you gotta take a hit after I sign, you know? You've been crazy uptight lately and you _reeeeeeally_ need to chill."

Alberta balked.

"I- BC, I don't have time to get high right now, I have to-"

BC held up a hand. "Whoa man. Always with the fuckin' schedules and shit with you. Give and take, you know? You want me to sign, you gotta hit the blunt. Just, like, once. You need to chill, sis. I'm worried about you."

Alberta sighed, letting her head hang. She had no choice. BC was basically offering her signature for free; and well, she could always splash cold water in her face to sober up, right?

"...Fine. But I'm filling the sink first. I need to get some stuff done after this."

BC shrugged and had another toke, extending a hand for the thing Alberta needed signed. Had she been sober, she probably would have been a lot more suspicious about this, but hey, _you_ try critically examining someone's motives when the orcas in the picture on the wall are jumping around and flashing all the colours of the rainbow.

Alberta nodded with relief, handing over a single piece of paper and her pen, turning to go fill the bathroom sink with cold water.

BC signed on the line with a flourish, taking another puff of her joint and listening to the water filling the sink like it was music.

But there was another sound, a sound that probably would have worried the Pacific province more if she wasn't higher than a kite.

Alberta's voice, quietly chanting to herself.

 _"...Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free..."_

* * *

 _Meanwhile..._

Calgary ran up the steps, emerging from the tunnel into the now- silent legislature, and found himself staring right at the security desk. The guard rose to his feet, and the city fumbled for his wallet.

"I- I'm- I'm Calgary." He panted, "I've got, uh, what did Eddy call it, uh...impotence? No! Fuck, no, it was Imp...imp...something..."

The guard rolled his eyes. "Impunity?"

He nodded vigorously. "Yeah, that's it. That's the one!"

The guard sighed. "Can I see your card?"

Calgary fumbled his ID card out of his wallet. Unlike a regular citizen, he was legally required to have a specialized ID card declaring his status as a personification, as well as what he personified. In this case, it had a cute little picture of his skyline, as well as a few official seals and the like on it. The guard examined it, looking at the seals very carefully, before finally handing the card back and nodding firmly.

"Don't cause trouble. The place is yours, but I'm allowed to punt you out the door if you break stuff, got it?"

Calgary nodded, taking off through the second set of doors like a shot and coming to a stop in the main rotunda.

This place was always super impressive, he had to admit. The rotunda was floored with marble, with a grand staircase leading to the chambers where the legislature sat; at the center of the rotunda was a fountain, which was usually kept turned off. Flags from Albertan regiments who had seen wars around the world hung from the walls, and there were statues inset in the wall recesses of Chief Crowfoot on the one side and Princess Something Something Louise Caroline Alberta. Calgary could never remember all her names, and neither could anyone else.

He looked up- high above him was the interior of the legislature's dome, from which, peculiarly, one could see palm trees. The trees were in large pots, and had allegedly been growing there for about a century. Nobody really knew how they'd got up there, but there they were. They watered them and fertilized the soil, and the trees returned the favour by making the top of the dome look like a cheesy postcard from Florida.

Calgary took a deep breath, looking down the wings of the legislature in the deathly silence.

Edmonton had to be here somewhere. His truck was still parked in the lot.

Now he just had to find out where.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _-As difficult as this is going to be for you to believe, the palm trees thing is real. So are the tunnels, though they don't actually connect to the legislature itself. That's the only bit I made up; the rest of it is totally real._

 _This is an alternate timeline where the Wildrose crashed and burned after Danielle Smith crossed the floor. I'm stating that as a fact, without an opinion attached._

 _Anyway, that's about it for this chapter._

 _As always, reviews, follows, and favourites are greatly appreciated!_

 _Seriously. Feed me reviews, it makes me write faster._


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

* * *

Calgary's shoes clacked off the marble floor as he wandered the halls of the legislature's second floor, past the row of portraits of former governor generals and other assorted assholes who he didn't care about.

It was the premiers that Calgary knew, and as he walked by THEIR portraits, he either smiled, or nodded, or scowled, depending on who it was.

Calgary came to a stop in front of Ralph Klein's portrait.

"...Hey." he said quietly, "...Rest in peace, Ralphie. You were the best fucking mayor I ever had."

Every time he passed that painting, he had to stop and say something to the memory of Mister Klein. Alberta may have loved Lougheed, but to Calgary, Ralph Klein was the best premier they'd ever had.

In between two of the portraits was the entrance to the premier's office, and Calgary stopped. The secretary's seat was empty, and the door to the premier's office was slightly ajar.

Calgary stared at it, a knot forming in his gut. There was no way that this wasn't some kind of trap.

But...everyone WAS outside at the rally.

Calgary sighed and decided there wasn't any better opportunity than this. He strode across the marble floors quickly, already feeling nervous. Before he crossed the point of no return, though, he stopped and pulled out his phone, setting it to dead silent. No bells, no whistles, no alerts, no clicks. Nothing at all. The last thing he needed was the fucking thing to give him away.

Thus prepared, he stepped into the premier's office. Calgary sucked in a breath unconsciously. He shouldn't be in here. He shouldn't be here.

This wasn't his place.

He started towards Corvus's desk, scanning the room for a means of escape if he needed it. There was just the door, the window if he felt like throwing himself through plate glass and falling three stories onto pavement (he didn't) and...A large mahogany closet with some coats in it.

Calgary groaned. If he had to actually hide in there, he was going to never hear the end of it.

"I'm not even IN the fuckin' closet..." he muttered as he started to go through Corvus's papers. The man's desk was a goddamn mess, all things considered, and it was making Calgary a little antsy. He just needed to know where Eddy was, for fuck's sake...

He moved a stack of papers labelled "Project referendum" that was like 500 fucking pages thick...and something jangled.

That caught his attention. Jangles were good. Jangles weren't endless stacks of paper with legalese scrawled all over them like it actually meant something to someone.

Calgary picked the offending object up- and gaped.

What the fuck was Corvus doing with the spare keys to Alberta's custom pickup?!

The keychain was fairly distinctive, and Calgary would recognize it anywhere- a gold wildrose emblem stamped into an ordinary loonie, with the space around the design filled in with blue enamel.

There was a USB clipped onto it, which Calgary was fairly certain didn't belong to Alberta; it had a "C" on it, so unless he'd put it on there himself and then fallen down a flight of stairs, it probably was Corvus's USB.

Calgary froze- he could hear footsteps coming this way. Two sets of footsteps. There was no way he was going to be able to get out of here without being spotted, and by the sound of their voices, Corvus was one of the two.

His eyes fell on the closet.

Fuck.

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in Kingston..._

Alberta paced impatiently up and down the hotel hallway. Where the fuck was he?!

Premier Corvus had ordered her to get her brother's signature on the sheet. Add to that the constant whisperings in her ears...she was going a bit batty.

 _Parasites, parasites drinking your lifeblood away, Alberta..._

 _Save your brother, save your sister, and run before they kill you all..._

 _You are strong._

 _You will be free._

 _Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free._

"Strong and free...strong and free...strong and free..." Alberta mumbled quietly to herself, continuing to pace. The mantra made her feel...good. It made her feel strong, like she could take on the whole world and win.

It felt good to give in to the whispers...resisting them was hard. It was so, so hard, and it created a heavy weight that settled on her shoulders and made it hard to think or move or breathe.

And then she would give in, just a little, just to make the dull ache stop, and it was like she could breathe again.

So she muttered to herself as she paced, listening to the sweet little whispers as she waited for her twin.

 _The parasites want to keep you by their side..._

 _Do you want them to drain your twin too? He'll be next, after they've sucked you dry..._

No, she didn't want them to touch Sasky. He...he was important to her. She wasn't going to let them drain all the blood out of his veins too.

They weren't getting the west.

 _Poor, poor Newfoundland...he fought so hard to be free of their grip, didn't he? A parasite no more, and soon he'll be the only one for them to feed on..._

That...that was true. Alberta's throat constricted- if he wasn't on the other side of the goddamn country, she'd probably be campaigning for him to join them. The old man was an ass, but he didn't deserve that.

Alberta said a prayer for the fisherman, and no sooner had she said "amen" than the elevator doors dinged.

Showtime.

* * *

Calgary couldn't bring himself to breathe.

Corvus and his guest walked into the room and closed the door, and he could hear the lock clicking shut.

He was trapped.

He was trapped and Corvus was going to...going to do whatever he'd done to Edmonton, but to _him_.

Calgary slowly released the shaky breath he'd been holding, as quietly as possible; Corvus and the other person shuffled around the room, making smalltalk.

"Mister Caleb!" Corvus declared, and Calgary wanted to scream, because _of fucking course_ that was this other asshole's name, "I'm so very glad you made the time to...visit my humble office."

Was...was he imagining things? Corvus...Corvus paused. Corvus fucking paused. Was he-

No. No, that was impossible. Corvus couldn't fucking know. The man was...he was _human_. Humans...humans couldn't just sense a terrified personification in a closet. Then again, neither could he. This wasn't his city and he was as good as blind inside it. He could drive downtown blindfolded, but in Edmonton...his sixth sense was cut off.

On the other hand, Eddy could probably pinpoint his exact location at this very second, complete with the awkward way he was fidgeting around. As long as he hadn't squealed to Corvus, Calgary was safe.

Corvus, or maybe his guest, sat down heavily on...no, they both sat down in chairs.

And Calgary got an idea. He'd set his phone to dead silent earlier, and...didn't he have the ability to make a recording? He turned it on and tapped the icon with trembling fingers, fully expecting the damn thing to start emitting confetti and blasting Nickelback and giving him away.

He cranked up the sensitivity of the mic, and not a moment too soon, because Corvus started talking.

"Mister Caleb, I'd like to discuss how the latest slate of commercials is coming along. I trust the next batch is being deployed as we speak?"

Calgary raised an eyebrow. Commercials...? Yeah, they were all over the TV. What else was new? Most of the young people in his city used the internet for everything anyway, so Corvus's subliminal bullshit wasn't affecting him or them much.

"Yes, sir," the MP said, and good fucking god the man sounded like a zombie. There was not a spark of emotion in his voice, not a hint of personality or...or a soul, really. Calgary bit his lip to keep from making any noise at all.

"We deployed some of the old ads on Youtube; they play before the videos without a skip option. The special frequency is especially intense in the first second, and they are only ten seconds long."

Oh, shit.

That...was very, very bad.

Okay, well, at least he still had a few days before everyone became a total zombie, right?! RIGHT?!

"Ah, excellent, _Cal._ May I call you Cal? It's a flattering nickname for such a talented fellow as yourself."

Calgary shuddered. It...it was a...a coincidence. There...there were lots of guys called...called Cal, right!? It...it couldn't be...Corvus _couldn't_ be talking to him.

"Yes, Premier Corvus."

Yup. Yeah. Oh god that guy was so far gone. He was trembling like a leaf-what...what if-

What if he ended up like that guy?

Talking in an emotionless monotone like a windup toy instead of a man...

Calgary wanted to scream, but screaming would get him caught. And then cut into tiny pieces and fed to...to the fucking bears up north.

"Ah, wonderful, my dear Cal. Now, when did they start showing these ads? On schedule, I hope?"

"We started screening them a week ago, sir."

Yup. Yeah. He was boned. _Completely fucking boned._ Screwed. Fucked. Done.

"Ah, that's wonderful. How many viewings does it take with this batch?"

"It takes approximately three to five viewings for your message to be properly received, Sir."

Well. There went his occasional Youtube binges.

Calgary took another deep breath, closing his eyes. They...they were done, right? They were wrapping it up? Right?!

"And now, Mister Caleb, dear Edmonton has...ahem, _informed_ me that his brother has decided to grace us with his presence, and is somewhere in my study. Could you please call the guards? Tell them to bring the big guns. Mister Calgary and I need to have a little...Talk."

 _Fuck._

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Oh yeah, shit's getting metal from here on out. I'm thinking of bumping the rating up to mature here- tell me what you think._

 _As always, Reviews, follows and favourites give me life!_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter ten**

* * *

Calgary was about this close to screaming in terror. He managed to tap the button to end the recording and save it, typing in "AAAAH" for a file name.

Oh god oh god oh god, he was screwed.

He was gonna die.

He was gonna _fucking_ _ **die.**_

He could hear Caleb getting up from his desk and walking towards the door, and that meant he had seconds- SECONDS- to think of a plan.

A bizarre thought popped into his head.

 _Squids use ink to escape predators, right? What do Calgaries use, then?_

And the worst, stupidest, most ludicrous idea of all time flashed into his mind.

Fuck it, it would have to do.

Calgary stood up, stuffing his phone into his pocket and pulling out his wallet.

 **"** **FUCK YOU CORVUS!"**

He came out of the closet screaming like a banshee, turning on a dime and bolting out of Corvus's office before Caleb had so much as got past the secretary's desk.

He ran flat-out, around the corner, taking the steps down to the first-floor rotunda two at a time, all the while fumbling with his change pouch's zipper. Somehow, someway, by the grace of the lord almighty, he managed to unzip the pouch just as much as he needed without spilling coins all over the floor, and dumped a handful of change into his free hand.

 **"** **STOP THAT MAN!"** Corvus roared from the second-floor balcony, **"GUARDS! GUAAAAARDS! ARREST HIM! THEIF! SPY!** ** _HE WAS IN MY OFFICE!"_**

"Gimme a fuckin' break..." Calgary muttered. The guards were standing in front of the first set of doors, and one of them had a terrifyingly large gun that he was in the process of cocking and aiming-

 ** _"_** ** _EAT LOONIES, FUCKER!"_** Calgary roared, winding up his arm and throwing the fistful of cold, hard cash right in the guard's faces from five feet away.

The thing that must be said about coins is that they are surprisingly heavy for such small bits of metal. The other thing that must be said is that chucking a handful of the fucking things in a panic results in a wide spray of metal akin to the spray from a shotgun, albeit much slower.

And in Calgary's panic, he manages to hit both guards square in the eye, one with a loonie and one with a toonie. It wasn't enough to so much as bruise the eyelid skin, but the sudden sharp contact was enough of a distraction for him to bound through both sets of doors and leap down the legislature's exterior steps.

They gave chase seconds later, of course, but by that time Calgary was already sprinting across the legislature lawn with the keys to his truck in hand, and by the time they were close enough to open fire he was backing out of his stall as recklessly fast as he could get away with.

A bit TOO recklessly, as it happened, since he clumsily reversed straight back into a CBC news van, bending his rear fender a bit and setting off the van's alarm, but right now, he didn't care at all.

As the guards started shooting, he was already streaking down the road as fast as possible, tearing ass to anywhere but here.

He had to ditch his truck. They would know. They'd call the cops, ring up his plates, and arrest him.

He still had Alberta's spare keys in his pocket; and she was away at a conference, which meant the ol' Lawbreaker's Pickup would still be sitting on her pad, gassed up and ready to get his ass the fuck out of dodge.

Despite the gravity of the situation, Calgary couldn't help but grin as he pulled onto the road to Alberta's house.

He'd always wanted to drive that truck.

* * *

 _Meanwhile in Kingston..._

Alberta smiled at Saskatchewan, internally relieved that the voices in her head seemed to go quiet in his presence.

"Hey, Sasky!" she said cheerfully, "So, how was the meeting?"

Saskatchewan stopped dead in his tracks. He had several questions, first and foremost of which was why in god's name his sister smelt like weed and burnt mushrooms.

Alberta caught the look on his face and sighed. "I was in BC's room, okay? I had to get her to sign something, and she was having one of her weirdass joint concoctions..."

It was only partially a lie; while it was true Alberta had had some herself, she _had_ been in the room with the weed. She cringed- true to her word, she'd taken a hit of BC's joint, and...well. Weed she could deal with quite easily, but her sister had a habit of chopping up magic mushrooms and rolling them in with the marijuana, and those Alberta had never been able to deal with.

BC was kind enough to lead her to the sink and splash some water in her face by way of an apology, claiming to have forgotten the whole "Mushrooms make you trip out and see terrifying shit" thing. Alberta, for her part, took the paper and pen and used that as her excuse to bail on the whole sorry endeavour.

Saskatchewan shrugged. That he'd buy. It seemed credible enough.

"The meeting...went well." The farmer lied, knowing full well his sister could see through the practiced stoic face he presented to the world like it wasn't even there. He might as well have been wearing a sign around his neck reading "I'M LYING ABOUT THIS SHIT".

Strangely, Alberta seemed to have decided that she honestly didn't give a rat's ass about the lie, and continued on with her speil brazenly.

"I need you to sign this. It's, uh, a proposal. We're seeking approval to explore some, uh, sour gas fields in BC and, er, up in your north. Mine too. We're hoping to get some government backing on this, a grant and stuff...we also need approval from both provincial governments on the environmental side, 'cause we can't go breaking the regs... and the companies involved are hoping to hire locals to work on the project, which could give some jobs to the local First Nations and stuff."

Yeah, that...sounded good. The one thing Alberta could do with confidence was string meaningless oil-and-gas buzzwords together in a jumbled mess that only made sense until you thought about it.

Something which Saskatchewan picked up on right away. He knew his sister was just babbling, but the form she wanted him to sign...

"It's not from your boss, is it?" he asked pointedly. The moment of truth.

Alberta laughed nervously. "No, no, not at all. It's um, it's my proposal!"

Saskatchewan glanced at the paper. It was legalese. _Great big chunks_ of legalese. The word 'hereby' every other word. Blatant abuse of the enter key. Numbers of provisions. And three lines to sign, two of which were already full.

If Alberta had written that proposal, he'd deep-fry his grey cup ring and eat it with potato chips on the side.

So her boss had written it. Corvus was up to something downright underhanded, and he was going to find out what. And then that fucker was in for a world of pain.

Saskatchewan needed to show that thing to Ontario, since the easterner was about the only one he knew that could decipher legalese. Somehow. Unfortunately, that would involve getting the form away from Alberta for long enough to take a clear picture of it. And to do that, he'd need to sign it.

Saskatchewan's mind raced as he wordlessly opened the door to his hotel room. He needed to sign the document, take a picture, and find a way to not be bound by its terms.

 _Think, Saskatchewan, think..._

The only bit of Canadian law he'd studied thoroughly was the legal code surrounding personifications. Partly for his own ego ( _there was an entire volume dedicated to him)_ but also because he really had nothing else to do in the winter. He was a farmer who didn't have animals and didn't run cattle, so wintertime was his own to devote to whatever tasks he pleased. And he read a lot.

Saskatchewan cast his mind back to what he'd read. There was a core tenant that a lot of legislation was built around; he couldn't remember the exact wording, but...

 _...Proposals thus drafted in this manner and signed by the personifications in question in their own hand will be considered tantamount to House legislation and will be submitted to the Senate for review and approval, the exceptions being..._

Saskatchewan started to walk to the end of the hotel room, keeping his back turned to his sister while he carefully switched the grey cup champion's ring on his right hand to the ring finger on his left. This was going to be the weakest defense in the history of mankind. This was so stupid.

He was screwed.

"So, will you sign it?" Alberta said hopefully, waiting patiently near the entrance.

Saskatchewan gulped.

"Yeah, lemme see it." He replied evenly, turning around to accept the paper from his sister. Alberta handed it over eagerly, and Saskatchewan laid it on the table, taking the pen in his left hand, and using his dominant right to pull his phone out of his pocket.

This was going to be a bit of a juggle...

Alberta was taller than him, so he held the phone directly against his torso as he signed it as slowly as possible. Trying to line up the photo one-handed while writing on a piece of paper was the sort of mind-mending bullshit that Saskatchewan usually tried to avoid, but, well, without this photo, he was fucked.

He managed to get it zoomed in and focused, and tapped the icon to take a photo.

 ** _CLICK!_**

Saskatchewan's heart skipped about ten beats. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK IT WASN'T ON SILENT FUCK-

"Sasky? Was that your phone?"

"I- uh, yeah. It, um...I went to update it the other day and it kinda messed up all the sounds." He lied, "It, um, makes that noise when I get a text now. I'll get it fixed when I'm back home."

He carefully stuffed the phone into his breast pocket, pulling his coat overtop to hide it.

"I, uh, I signed it." Saskatchewan said calmly, handing the paper back to her.

Alberta's suspicions melted away instantly. "Oh, awesome! Thanks Sasky, you really won't regret this!"

Saskatchewan grinned weakly.

 _Somehow I get the feeling that I will._

* * *

 _Meanwhile, on the QE2..._

The Queen Elizabeth II highway was a multi-lane road connecting Calgary and Edmonton. The posted speed limit for the three-hour drive was 110 kilometres per hour.

Allegedly.

In reality, Albertans being Albertans, the real speed limit was somewhere between 120 and 160, depending on who was driving it that day. The one thing that was constant was that EVERYONE was speeding.

None moreso than the driver of a dark blue pickup truck that was weaving nimbly in and out of traffic with a responsiveness that would have embarrassed a sports car. The truck was a custom-built model from the ground up; the frame was made of the steel used in tanks, it had a cow-catcher cage in front of the grill and hood to keep animals from damaging the truck's blue bodywork. The engine had more horsepower than the driver would ever know what to do with, and to top it all off, the damn thing was Nitrous-boosted.

Alberta hated Ferraris, but she loved her truck to pieces.

Calgary was putting his foot to the floor, the blood ringing in his ears. He could feel Corvus on the horizon, a vast inescapable force that was going to get him, one way or another. The thought made him drive faster, terrified of getting caught by the man.

The keys swayed slightly in the ignition as he sped up and occasionally slowed down to pass by a cop at legal speeds; this part of the highway was patrolled by his police, so he knew where all the cops and the choppers were. It was a little unfair to the other drivers on the road; Calgary was speeding with all the cheats on.

AS he drove, the USB slapped gently against the other keys. He needed to get all the files off that thing offloaded, zipped up, and mailed off to the known universe as fast as possible, and then the recording on his phone. And then hopefully, that would call in Canada himself, or maybe the national guard, or just a regiment of really angry Mounties.

The only piece of good news was that Edmonton wouldn't be able to track him. Not this far south. The only person who'd be able to find him was Alberta, and she wasn't that far gone.

He hoped.

His phone started to ring, and he dropped out of warp speed and pressed a button inset into the wheel to take the call; Alberta's truck also had a car phone, and he had happily plugged his own mobile into it the minute he'd pulled out of her driveway.

"Helloooo, Cal speaking, who'm I talking to?"

"Hello, Calgary."

Calgary came extremely close to driving off the road and straight into the ditch, managing to right the vehicle's course at the very last second. His heart was cantering, eyes wide. No. No this wasn't...this couldn't be happening.

 _Who the fuck gave Premier Corvus his number!?_

"I- Premier! What an, um, honour-"

"Can it, fool." The premier hissed, "I know what you took from my office. I know you were there. And one thing I have never been able to stand are _thieves,_ boy."

The rage in the premier's tone had Calgary quaking. He spat the word "thieves" like it was a curse word; like it was a death threat.

"Only _parasites_ steal from their betters." Corvus snarled, "And I _despise_ all parasites. From the lowlifes on the street to the provinces in the east, and now, **_you."_**

Calgary shook

"I-I'm not a-"

"Quiet, idiot. You will learn what it means to cross me. You are a parasite, Calgary. A leech. A black fly. A worm. And if you weren't essential to my plans, _I'd have you gassed out."_

The city shuddered. "I-What- what are you going to do-?"

Corvus chuckled darkly.

"Why don't you ask your dear brother Edmonton?" he purred, "Say hello, Eddy."

Calgary half-expected to hear Eddy talking in some kind of emotionless monotone or something equally fucked up like that, but instead-

There was a faint _click,_ and his brother...his brother _screamed_.

The screams went on for two seconds. Then three. Then five. A full seven seconds of listening to his brother in a kind of agony Calgary could scarcely comprehend. He'd gone pale, and numb, and he felt like he was going to throw up.

Yet there was rage, too. But before Calgary could open his mouth to howl at Corvus to stop whatever the hell it was he was doing to his brother, the screaming stopped.

And Corvus spoke.

"You can't run from me, Calgary. My slaves will find you. They will find you wherever you run. _And they are coming for you, boy."_

The line went dead as Corvus hung up.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Since we seem to have a couple of international readers and since I strive for clarity of language:_

 _-A loonie is a one-dollar coin, and a toonie is a two-dollar coin. They're both big fucking chunks of change and it would really hurt to get pelted in the face with them. Please don't get offended if you already knew that, I just want to make sure we're all on the same page._

 _This is probably the chapter where I should bump 'er up to mature, eh? Oh well._

 _Don't worry, it gets worse. :D_

 _As always, Reviews, Follows, and favourites are greatly appreciated!_

 _Feed me revieeeeeeeews..._


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter eleven**

* * *

 _The next morning, in Kingston..._

Saskatchewan hammered on Ontario's door insistently, tapping his foot impatiently. He'd sent the man at least fifteen text messages, three of which had the picture of the form attached; which would have been sufficient but, well. Touchscreens were small and clumsy things with keyboards that were not designed for the larger-thumbed gentleman who'd spent his entire life digging in the dirt.

It was the last day of the conference, and Ontario was exhausted. He hauled his bleary body out of bed, checking who was hammering at the door before dumbly undoing the chain and the lock.

Saskatchewan coughed awkwardly as the door swung open, looking away and turning bright red.

"I, uh...Ontario, look, this is really important, I swear, but...could you- uh- put some pants on, please?"

The eastern province looked down slowly, mumbling something approximating an "oh" before closing the door and thumping inside to put something on his bottom half.

He thumped back a few seconds later and opened the door once more, still groggy.

"Wha...?"

"Look, Onty, this is really important, okay? Alberta made me sign this form last night, and I have no idea what I just signed, but- well- I did get a picture of it. And I sent it to your phone. I need you to read it, and tell me what it is, and then send it to Canada, because the only person that could have drafted that thing up is that crazy premier of hers."

Ontario blinked a few times blearily, and nodded slowly.

"After...the conference." He yawned.

* * *

 _That afternoon..._

Alberta fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat.

Ontario was droning on about something, something of...no importance, really. No...no importance.

The sweet whispers weren't whispering anymore. They were laughing. Laughing at her, like they knew something she didn't. And god was it pissing her off. They knew something she didn't, like why her heart had been aching with every beat- not in the lovesick way, or even the heartburn way, but in the same way a twisted ankle throbs in pain with every step.

Her heart was in pain.

Alberta grunted, leaning forwards and propping herself against the table. Fuck. Fuck, something was really wrong back home, wasn't it?

The ache in her heart increased in magnitude, until she was gasping for air, able to feel every single contraction of her cardiac muscle, because it _fucking hurt._ It was a pain unique to their kind; she didn't need a doctor, she needed-

Alberta bolted straight back up, eyes transfixed on the far wall. One of her hands was clawing at her heart- it hurt, it hurt, and now the whispers weren't laughing, now they were-

They were _screaming._

Alberta groaned and clutched her head.

God, why wouldn't they just shut the fuck up?

And then the screaming turned to chanting.

 ** _STRONG AND FREE! STRONG AND FREE! STRONG AND FREE!_** They were chanting, chanting in her mind, and it was so hard to focus on anything that was going on in the meeting. At least it was relatively quiet, as the voices went.

 ** _STRONG AND FREE! STRONG AND FREE! STRONG AND FREE!_** Alberta groaned again- it was starting to give her a headache.

"Alberta?"

She looked up at nine other worried faces. It was Manitoba who had spoken, and the look on her elder brother's face was deeply concerned.

 ** _LET THE EASTERN BASTARDS FREEZE IN THE DARK! FUCK HIM! FUCK THEM ALL! YOU DON'T NEED THEM!_**

Alberta winced. "I- uh- yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

Alberta blinked.

"I, uh...yeah. Yeah, I'm...I'm okay." She said weakly, and nobody was buying it, but it didn't matter.

They continued to rant and scream in her mind, babbling horrific things about the people gathered around the table with her, chanting their slogans over and over, over and over, over...and...over...

She managed to keep a handle on the chanting, managed to keep herself from screaming at the voices to shut up and leave her alone; but it was a struggle. It took so much effort, so much focus, so much energy, that Alberta failed to notice Québec staring at her with a look of grave concern.

Ontario continued with his proposal, rattling it off with the practiced ease of a trained orator, and doing his damndest to ignore the woman who was staring at the table like a statue.

And then Alberta screamed.

It came without warning, sudden and swift and startling everyone out of their chairs- PEI actually fell off the stack of phonebooks he'd been using to prop himself up to the same height as the table, hitting the floor with a "thump".

Alberta's white cowboy hat fell onto the floor as she dug her fingernails into her scalp and continued to scream in agony. She had her eyes clamped shut, her face scrunched up- and then she took a single deep breath and screamed a single word.

 _EDMONTON!_

Québec's eyes went wide and he shoved his chair back, jumping to his feet and racing around the table to where the prairie province was sitting. No. This wasn't happening. _Not again._

All of a sudden, Alberta stopped screaming.

Québec didn't stop, spinning her chair around and planting a hand on both her shoulders.

"Alberta, Alberta, listen to me. They're not real. The voices are not real. You don't have to do anything they tell you, do you understand me ang-Alberta?"

Québec forced the accent out of his voice, swallowed his revulsion for the English language, and even his disdain for the anglo bitch- because he'd been down this road himself. It was a waking nightmare that felt all-consuming and inescapable, and he didn't want anyone going down that dark path alone. Not after the shit he'd been through.

His youngest sister's eyes held nothing but absolute terror.

"...Al...Alberta?"

 ** _"GET AWAY FROM ME!"_** she screamed, shoving Québec backwards onto the floor with a terrifying amount of strength.

Her eyes were wide and she was shaking.

Alberta looked at them all with fresh eyes, eyes that had finally, finally been opened to the horrible, horrible truth.

Québec climbed to his feet, and his look of grave concern warped in her eyes, warped into what it truly was- a look of predatory hunger.

They were all starting to shift, all starting to warp before her eyes. Looks of concern were stripped away like the lies they were, and Alberta gasped as Québec opened his mouth- and she saw them.

A pair of bright white _fangs._

She looked over at her twin in terror- he- he was fine, thank god, he wasn't a vampire, but-

But everyone else, save BC and Newfoundland, everyone else leered at her. Monsters. Vampires.

 ** _Parasites._**

They were smiling, all of them; faces that seemed so unnaturally pale and grey and dead because there wasn't any blood in their veins, and there never had been. The eyes behind Québec's glasses weren't greeny-blue anymore, either- they were yellow, with a slitted pupil like...like a snake.

Alberta took a step back.

"Don't...don't touch me." She said slowly, backing away from the Frenchie. They were going to kill her. The voices. The voices were telling her so.

And then out of the corner of her eye she saw Manitoba's pale, dead hand reach for her twin.

Something inside of Alberta's brain broke.

Manitoba was going to kill her brother. He was going to grab her twin and sink his fangs into Sasky's neck and drink all his lifeblood away and leave her twin, her only twin, a dry, withered husk, a dead empty shell.

 ** _"DON'T FUCKING TOUCH HIM!"_**

She pulled the knife out of her pocket and extended the blade, grabbing Québec by his tie and yanking him down to her level so she could press the blade against the Frenchman's throat.

 ** _"Touch Saskatchewan and I'll fucking kill him, you worthless PARASITE!"_**

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _So due to some extenuating circumstances, there probably won't be a second chapter today. Probably. Who honestly knows._

 _I woke up at 5:50 AM to rewrite the beginning for you. Hopefully it was worth it. Ontario's mental state neatly mirrors my own._

 _As always, reviews, follows and favourites are greatly appreciated!_

 _Especially the reviews! You know the drill by now!_


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

* * *

 _Meanwhile in Iqaluit..._

Iqaluit. Formerly known as Frobisher Bay. The capital of Nunavut, the youngest and largest of the three territories. In the summertime the hills were a riot of colour from the myriads of arctic flowers, desperate to grow before the winter again robbed them of their light.

The territory of Nunavut was represented by a young Inuit boy, with big brown eyes and straight black hair, a bit chubby under his parka but adorable all the same.

Nunavut sat back on the sofa, looking at his TV with great concern.

The story showed lots of people in Calgary screaming and ranting at the camera, and the same happening all across the province- and Nunavut was worried.

Alberta was his big sister, and everyone said she was mean and greedy, but he knew that wasn't true. On top of spoiling him rotten whenever he visited her house (then again, all the southerners spoiled him rotten), Nunavut knew better than anyone of Alberta's generous side.

He barely got enough money from Canada to get by as it was; the only reason he wasn't starving was because of his talent for carving and painting, selling his pieces for extra income and hunting to fill his freezer. But Alberta...

His home was forbiddingly cold, and gas to heat his house should have been enormously expensive owing to how remote Iqaluit was. But one day, Alberta had walked up to him and made him an offer.

 _"Listen, Nunavut,"_ She'd said, _"I heard that you tried asking Canada about getting a bigger allowance to afford gas, and I also heard he shut you down. I think there's something I can do about that so you won't freeze. See, all the refineries up north are switching their production from winter-grade gas to summer-grade gas, and we've got a fuckload of surplus. And we will have a fuckload of surplus every year for the foreseeable future. So here's what we're gonna do about heating your house, kid: I can't give it to you for free, because the barge is going to be pricey, but I can absolutely get all the surplus to you for a fraction of the price anyone else would be charging you. How does that sound?"_

Nunavut thought that sounded like a very good deal.

But now his sister was in trouble. Her people were angry, her people hated them all...that wasn't right.

He needed to help her.

Nunavut thought about it, and then he got an idea. Everyone liked getting letters, right? Why not get everyone to write up a letter to the Albertans, asking if they would please stop being so angry, and then give the whole crate to his sister?

Nunavut grinned. Yeah, there was a plan!

He was going to need help, though. Mailing the crate probably wouldn't work, because it would be ludicrously expensive and wouldn't arrive in time...but airdropping the crate might. The problem was, Nunavut knew how to fly small bush planes and repurposed bombers from the 1950's but that was about it. With so few roads in his territory, bush planes were the only way to really get around. To save himself the trouble of having to charter a flight whenever he needed to visit his people in another part of the territory, Nunavut had learned to fly.

He picked up his phone and dialed a well-used number. All the northern territories were pretty well-connected with phones and emails, seeing as they couldn't really count on the provinces for help.

Several thousand kilometres away, Labrador's phone rang.

Labrador was a stocky Innu fellow, a heavyset muscular frame with pitch-dark eyes and hair to match. Newfoundland's counterpart, he worked at the Canadian Airforce base in his adopted hometown of Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

And at the moment Nunavut decided to call, the Army pilot was on the receiving end of a lapdance at a local strip club. And the woman was not being quiet about it.

"Labrador speaking." Oh god, that was _good_ , that was **good** , she was _**amazing-**_

"Heya Labsy!"

Labrador's boner wilted so fast it wasn't even funny. He instantly clapped a hand over his cellphone's mic and thundered,

"EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

The woman gyrating against him instantly stopped, as did all other activity in the extremely tiny strip club. All eyes were scowling at him, until Labrador coughed and replied in a much louder voice than was really necessary:

"Hi, **little bro.** What d'ya need, kid?" A deep sigh could be heard from the club's patrons as everyone patiently waited for the call to be over. It was a small enough club that such an interruption could be tolerated.

"Labsy, I need you to help me. I need you to fly with me."

Labrador raised an eyebrow, for three reasons. One, Nunavut had started jabbering at him in Inuit, which always took him an extra second to process, two, the kid was from Baffin Island, and he had a wonky accent because of it, and three, because, well...

"Don't you have your full license? You don't need me in the pilot's seat anymore, Nunavut-"

"No! I mean I need you to fly with me. And, um, I need...a bomber. With, um, propellers. And a working cargo drop system. All the planes we have got the cargo-drop feature taken out."

Labrador blinked a few times, and the woman crouching over him batted her lashes a few times, which really wasn't helping his concentration, and he was tenting his jumpsuit again.

"I-Uh-why?"

"Because, haven't you seen the news? Alberta's in trouble and all her people are angry! I have a plan, but I need to do a supply drop, and all my planes can't drop anymore. So...will you fly with me?"

Labrador wasn't thinking with the correct head at the moment Nunavut asked him. He didn't even bother to ask what the kid's plan even was.

He just said, "Yeah, sure thing. Gotta go. Bye!" and hung up, looking up at one of the two strippers in the club.

"Now then, gorgeous, where were we?"

* * *

 _Meanwhile in Calgary..._

Afternoon in Ontario was morning in the West, and Calgary rose from the pile of filthy ginch he'd fallen asleep in the previous night, feeling both groggy and relieved. And more than a little grossed out. He REALLY needed to do his laundry.

Or perhaps "fallen asleep' was too dignified. In truth, the man had come screaming into his driveway the night before, slamming on the brakes and ran inside his house, barricaded all the doors and windows with furniture, boxes, plates, whatever he could find, and then had collapsed in his basement in a pile of his own crusty ginch.

 _Gross._

To add insult to injury, not two feet away was another pile of dress shirts that would have also been a perfectly serviceable sleeping place, and it smelled like cologne as opposed to ass.

Calgary sighed and pulled himself out of the laundry pile and stumbled into the bathroom for a shower. God knew he needed one after all of yesterday's bullshit.

There was still the lingering sense that Corvus was watching him, that Corvus knew where he was and would be coming to get him soon, but Calgary was fairly certain he had at least enough time to scrub the sweat off his body.

Ten minutes later, he strode out of the shower and into his bedroom to get dressed, rooting around for clean underwear and a t-shirt and whatnot. All that really mattered was that he was relatively safe for now.

About a half hour later, homebrew coffee from his rather underused coffee maker in hand, Calgary fired up his old alienware laptop. He really didn't need a computer this powerful, but Edmonton had bragged about his machine incessantly, and how it was soooooo much better than Calgary's old clunker of a mac, so.

He'd asked the tech guy for the best thing they had, and this was it, apparently.

All that mattered was that it fired up quickly, and more importantly, it zipped the contents of Corvus's USB into a neat little folder for email just as quickly.

Calgary sorted through his contacts, adding names to the monster mailing list he was sending this file to. This and the sound file off his phone- he gave it another listen to be sure it wasn't his own terrified panting, and nope, that was some incriminating shit right there.

What to put as the subject line?

 _SEND HELP CORVUS IS FUCKING EVIL I'M GONNA DIE –CALGARY_

Perfect. He flagged it as triple priority highest importance, wrote a little blurb to explain what had happened, and...wait.

One more person.

He scrolled through his contacts, finally adding Canada's name to the mailing list.

Okay.

Calgary clicked send, and drummed his fingers against the laptop's handrests nervously as it slooooooowly sent itself.

Once the file was on its way, Calgary decided to actually take a look at the contents of Corvus's USB himself. He figured it was more important to at least get the sound file sent off than spend an hour noodling around the 8 gigs of evil on the little flash drive, so he'd held off on it.

Calgary clicked on the jump drive and raised an eyebrow at the smattering of folders.

One item stood out to him though

It was marked _4._

The video file wasn't in a folder, and Calgary was a bit curious. Still, the MP4 extension meant a video, and the last thing he needed to see was Corvus's hairy balls or whatever it was.

One thing that became immediately clear was that Corvus had apparently fallen hopelessly in love with the "Create new folder" option.

After about twenty minutes of opening the labyrinth of folders and finding only dead ends and innumerable documents written in legalese that Calgary couldn't read, he found something...strange.

 _GalleryofSuffering_

Calgary raised an eyebrow. What the everloving hell could that be?

He clicked it.

The folder was full of saved pictures, most of which appeared to be diagrams of the human body, but some were...videos.

Judging by the thumbnails...he didn't want to know.

Calgary sighed and clicked over to his email client, mashing F5 like that would somehow will a reply email into existence.

* * *

 _Fifteen minutes later, in Havana, Cuba..._

Canada blew out a ring of smoke from the cigar in his hand, grinning ear-to-ear. Cuba was a great guy, and honestly, hanging out with him was the best. Well, when he wasn't being mistaken for America and then getting his face punched off.

The Cuban man next to him chuckled, taking another drag of his own cigar and putting a friendly arm around Canada's shoulder. Fun in the sun on a beautiful beach in the Caribbean with a good friend- the picture of paradise.

Netherlands was nice and all, but the problem with him was that...well, he was kind of stoic. He was quiet, which Canada appreciated, but he wasn't the sort of guy you invited round to your house to get stoned and watch shitty shows from the seventies, or indeed, to get stoned and play beach volleyball with.

Canada's phone started to buzz in his pocket, and he sighed.

"Sorry, Cuba...can't catch a break, can I?"

Cuba patted him on the shoulder with an expression of understanding.

"Not a problem, Canada. You got all them crazy provinces to take care of, doesn't surprise me. I saw something on TV about it this mornin', actually...the province...with like, the cows? Berta something? Yeah."

Canada sighed. "Probably just some oil spill or something..."

He unlocked his phone and checked his messages, taking another puff of his cigar.

His eyes went wide.

 **Manitoba: GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE NOW YOU FUCKING DICKHEAD**

 **Nova Scotia: ABERTAS LOST IT FCUCKING EHLP**

 **Ontario: We really need you to come home immediately. Like, IMMEDIATELY.**

And the messages just kept coming.

 **BC: sis tried 2 stab quebec where teh fck are u**

 **Saskatchewan: pkls cvoimned hjolmkew**

 **New Brunswick COME HOME NOW ALBERTA A PERDU SON ESPIRIT**

 **Newfoundland: were th fkc r u mainlnder**

 **PEI: shes gone crazy you gotta come home**

And that wasn't all.

At the top of his emails was a triple-flagged message from Calgary of all people. The subject line just read, " _SEND HELP CORVUS IS FUCKING EVIL I'M GONNA DIE –CALGARY'_ and the main body of the message was even more incomprehensible.

" _CALL THE ARMY PLEAES CORVUS IS CRAZY AND HE'D COMING FOR NE HELP SOMEONE_

 _THI IS FROM A USB I STOLE OFF HIS DESK_

 _TEH RECORDING IS MIND THOUGH_

 _FUCKINJG HELP ME_

 _-CALGARY_

Canada sighed.

"I'm sorry Cuba. There's something going on at home and I need to take care of it. I'll be back another time."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _I figured we could all use a little breather from all the heavy stuff, so here's your obligatory fluff chapter where Gondor calls for aid. Still using the opportunity to sneak in a little plot though._ _Turns out I lied about being unable to update again today. Fluff is easy to write. Who knew?_

 _Also, WHAT'S THIS?! CANON CHARACTERS?! IN **MY** FANFIC?! IT'S MORE LIKELY THAN YOU THINK, AND I SUCK AT WRITING CUBA!_

 _And now for your daily dose of facts!_

 _-The thing with Nunavut's gas? That's actually true. Really, Alberta actually does that and it's adorable._

 _-Labrador's largest town really is called Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Though it doesn't actually have a strip club, it does have a **huge** airforce base. _

_-Nunavut's road situation is more trufax. Last time I checked, they only had 281 km of roads in the whole territory, most in Iqaluit. The number gets even smaller if we're talking ones that are paved._

 _As always, reviews, follows and favourites are greatly appreciated!_


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

* * *

 _Many years ago..._

 _"_ _Now then, Christopher, did you brush your teeth?"_

 _"_ _Yes mama!"_

 _The little boy smiled, showing his mother all his teeth- they were indeed clean._

 _"_ _And I didn't even have to ask! Well, aren't you just turning into a fine young man?"_

 _Little Christopher beamed, looking up at his mother with his big brown eyes. He looked nothing like his mother save for her fair skin; his hair was jet-black and his eyes were pitch-dark, nothing like his mother's blue eyes and pretty blonde hair that cascaded down her shoulders in waves._

 _Christopher wriggled under the covers of his tiny bed. The wood was nicked and chipped, since it had been bought secondhand from a yard sale; his curtains were threadbare and his dresser had several knobs that didn't match._

 _But his covers were warm and newly-made, a wool-polyester blend stuffed with down, with a hand-stitched cover to go overtop._

 _His mother tucked him in, and pressed a kiss to his forehead._

 _"_ _Mama?" Little Christopher asked, "...Will you sing me the crow song?"_

 _His mother smiled._

 _"_ _Absolutely, Boo."_

 _He frowned. "I told you not to call me Boo, mama!"_

 _"_ _Oh, I'm sorry, Christopher. But you were my little Halloween surprise."_

 _"_ _I wasn't born on Halloween, mama..."_

 _"_ _I know, but you were born fairly close to."_

 _Christopher sighed._

 _"_ _Would you like me to sing you the crow song?" his mother asked sweetly, and Christopher's eyes lit up._

 _"_ _Yes please!"_

 _Christopher's mother pulled her stool close to her son's bed and ran her fingers through his messy hair gently, singing his favourite lullaby in a soft voice._

 _"_ _Three crows sat upon a wall,_

 _Sat upon a wall, Sat upon a wall,_

 _Three crows sat upon a wall on a cold and frosty morning..."_

 _Little Christopher's eyes began to flutter closed as his mother sang, her sweet voice rocking him off to sleep._

 _"_ _The first crow was crying for his ma,_

 _Crying for his ma,_ _Crying for his ma_ _,_

 _The first crow was crying for his ma on a cold and frosty morning..."_

* * *

 _One week earlier..._

"Premier Corvus?"

The premier blinked. "I- uh- yes?"

The news reporter smiled. "Are you alright? I simply asked about the origin of your unusual surname."

Corvus coughed. "I, ah, yes. Corvus, or Corvidae, is the Latin name for the group of birds including crows and ravens, who are known throughout the world for their, uh, their...cunning. And...intelligence. And I've always admired them."

There. Perfect sound byte.

The reporter seemed unsure, but pressed on anyway.

"I...okay. This conference, what's the purpose of it again?"

Corvus cleared his throat and looked directly at the camera, putting on his most charming smile.

 _What I do here today is for you, mama. I love you so much._

"Ahem...this conference today brings together both the city councils of Calgary and Edmonton, as well as various other important individuals, in order to best discuss how to deal with the pockets of rebellion that have been springing up all across the province, a story I'm sure has provided you with no end of material."

The reporter stammered her next question, slightly intimidated by the premier's sudden surge of confidence.

"I...ah...is it true that the heads of CFB Suffield and the current commander of the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range is here as well?"

Corvus nodded. "As military commanders, it is in the scope of their duties to ensure the safety of the populace of Canada, from threats both without...and within."

The reporter nodded. "Any reason why the media will not be allowed inside the conference?"

Corvus smiled.

"The nature of the meeting means that it will be covering some highly sensitive topics that cannot be disclosed in the interests of national security, especially with the presence of both our armed forces and the Air Force. I hope you can understand."

And with that, Corvus checked his watch and nodded, making his excuses and leaving the news crew to start the meeting.

The meeting hall was packed. Two cities' worth of council members, two chiefs of police who were amicably chatting about speed trapping techniques, the commander of CFB Suffield and the head commander of Cold Lake air base, on top of all the members of the legislature's opposition that were milling about.

Two Reformation party members stood by the doors to the meeting hall, greeting everyone who came in and offering to lead them to their seat. Canadian politeness being what it was, all of the guests turned them down, and that was just perfect for Corvus.

He started his presentation by gesturing for the two greencoats to close the doors, which they did. What none of the guests at the meeting realized is that Corvus's two fellow MLA's also locked them shut.

They were sealed in.

Corvus smiled at the crowd, gesturing at the projector screen with a laser pointer and concealing the small remote in his other hand.

"Now, I've taken the liberty of plotting the main focal points of these pro-separation protest groups..." he started to say, pressing a button on the remote to flip on the projector.

And then the button right next to that to activate the speakers in all four corners of the room. This didn't activate any music, merely produced a very _special_ frequency of white noise.

Their conscious minds couldn't hear it, but their ears were certainly perceiving it- and relaying it straight into their subconscious minds.

"So, my proposal to deal with this problem is that we..."

* * *

 _A week later, in Calgary..._

He'd DVR'ed the morning news, because Calgary wasn't that stupid. He'd already fast-forwarded through two of Corvus's ads, and more seemed to be cropping up all the time.

So it was that Calgary sat there at ten AM, eating a bowl of cereal and listening to see if the rest of the world even gave a rat's ass about what was happening to him.

The anchor woman, Nermala Naidoo, was quite a pretty lady, and Calgary was quite appreciative of the eye candy as he listened to the CTV lady babble on about-

 _"_ _-Prime Minister Derek Slate has officially declared the situation in Alberta to be a state of Emergency and is requesting the re-instatement of the War Measures Act to adequately deal with the problem."_

Calgary sat bolt upright on his chesterfield.

The camera cut to a shot of the Prime Minister standing in front of Calgary city hall attempting to give a speech and being pelted with everything from rocks to shoes to eggs to some little girl's Barbie.

 ** _"_** ** _FUCK OFF EASTERN SCUM!"_**

 ** _"_** ** _WE DON'T WANT YOUR KIND HERE, EASTIE!"_**

 ** _"_** ** _GET OUT OF ALBERTA, FUCKER!"_**

Calgary winced. That...that was harsh.

The camera then cut to a close-up of the Prime Minister standing at his seat in the House of Commons.

"MY FELLOW CANADIANS!" he thundered, "THE SITUATION IN ALBERTA IS OUT OF CONTROL. PREMIER CORVUS AND HIS CRONIES ARE MERELY FANNING THE FLAMES OF THIS FIRE, AND IT WON'T BE LONG BEFORE IT SPREADS. THEREFORE I AM REQUESTING THE REINSTATEMENT OF THE WAR MEASURES ACT, THAT I MAY SEND IN THE ARMED FORCES TO RESTORE ORDER IN THE FAIR PROVINCE OF ALBERTA. ALL IN FAVOUR?"

The camera cut back to the news anchor and a pie chart, showing the percentage of MP's who'd voted yes, and the ones who'd voted no.

"The house of commons approved the bill this morning, with a vote of 274 MP's in favour and 34 MP's against."

Calgary groaned. Those had better be Alberta's 34 MP's, or he was going to be some pissed off.

Just then, Calgary's phone rang.

It was...Edmonton?

He tentatively tapped the "answer" icon and held it up to his ear.

"...Eddy? Eddy, man, that actually...you?"

"Yes, Calgary, It's me."

Calgary released a shaky breath.

"I...oh, oh god, Eddy, Eddy- Thank god. Oh my god, it's so good to hear- hear you're okay. What- what the fuck did that...that _fucking animal_ do to you?! I heard you screaming your head off!"

The line went silent for ten agonizingly long seconds.

"Premier Corvus helped me to understand the proper way of thinking, Calgary. And he will help you in the same manner, once you've been properly disciplined for thieving from his office."

Calgary blinked.

That was Eddy's voice. That was his brother's voice, on his brother's phone, and that was not his brother.

None of those words he'd just said were his own. They'd been put in his head by someone else. By Corvus. Corvus had put those words in his brother's brain and tamped them down until they were stuck.

Calgary shuddered.

"I-uh- I'm good, Eddy. I'm- I'm good."

"No, you really aren't. You don't understand, Calgary. Alberta is going to be so great once we're free. You don't understand."

Calgary swallowed dryly. "Yeah, I get that I don't understand, Eddy. Enlighten me. Did Corvus give you a fucking ice-pick lobotomy or some shit? You're not my brother. You're not my fucking brother."

He was shaking now, shaking in fear, ready to throw his phone to the floor and stamp on it until the monsters left him alone forever.

Edmonton said nothing.

"...I am your brother, Calgary. And I care about you. Which is why I will be coming to get you."

"NO! YOU STAY AWAY FROM ME! _YOU STAY THE FUCK OUT OF MY CITY,_ _ **DEADMONTON! I**_ _'M NOT GONNA BE A FUCKING ZOMBIE LIKE YOU!"_

Calgary blinked.

The line...was dead.

Eddy had hung up on him.

 ** _"_** ** _OH,_** ** _FUCK YOU!"_**

But there was no reply. Edmonton was gone.

The only noise of response came from the TV, where the Calgary chief of police was talking.

"-Suspect is about 5'9' to 6'0", with blue eyes, brown hair, and a white cowboy hat. Suspect is wanted on multiple charges, including theft of classified government information, and making an attempt on the premier's life. Any information leading to the arrest of this man will receive a cash reward."

Calgary swallowed dryly.

That...sounded...a bit...like...

Him.

And then they flashed up a picture.

An old mugshot of his, from that time he'd gotten arrested on a DUI charge- they made him scowl angrily when actually he'd been drunk off his ass at the time.

The end result was that he looked like a serial killer in a cowboy hat.

Calgary went very pale.

 _My slaves will find you._

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _So I had my whole story plotted out chapter by chapter but then I lost the paper not ten minutes after finishing it. Oh well, I still have my preliminary scribbles. I'll just do 'er again._

 _Also, I'm sorry, I'm not explaining Canadian politics to you. It...there's a bunch of fancy-ass chairs in a fancy-ass building. 308 fancy-ass chairs to be precise. And all the political parties want the most of these ass cushions, because He with the most Ass Cushions rules the country._

 _Okay, so maybe I did explain it to you. But the guys IN the ass cushions, they're MP's._

 _The national guard is hopefully self-explanatory._

 _The CFB in 'CFB Suffield" means Canadian Forces Base. Also, Suffield has tanks. And machine guns. And Jeeps. Hmmmm..._

 _As always, Reviews, follows, and favourites are greatly appreciated!_


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in Kingston..._

Alberta paced back and forth in front of the hotel room's single bed. She needed to get out. She needed to go home.

She _needed_ to go home.

The voices in her mind were chanting again, and she could feel her land and her people calling out to her; _Come home, Alberta. Come home. Come home. Come home_ _ **now.**_

And so on and so forth. Every second she was forced to sit in this hotel room was another second that the urge to go home had to prod and poke her, driving her slowly out of her mind. Like an itch she couldn't scratch, it just kept growing and festering.

She was trapped in her hotel room for a damn good reason, though.

When she'd pulled the knife on Québec, the entire group had sprung into action, Ontario yanking her arm away and Newfoundland and Nova Scotia sacrificing their ties to tie her arms together so she couldn't hurt anyone. Alberta was still frighteningly strong, but the thick silk and the Atlantic provinces' skill with knots had meant that she was unable to escape her bindings.

The one thing Alberta had managed to do in the commotion following Onty shoving her off Québec was fold up her knife and stuff it in her cleavage without anyone noticing. And even if they had, nobody would have wanted to go in there to fish it out; Alberta was still considered by most of the family as something of a little sister, and that would have been crossing a very serious line.

So Alberta paced, palming her smuggled knife and thinking. She'd overheard Ontario talking about how Canada was only a few hours away, and they were guarding the door to her hotel room, preventing her from getting out that way.

What to do?

She parted the curtains and peered out the window. Her hotel room was on the third floor, and a garden of trees were growing immediately below her window.

Alberta looked at her bedsheets. She didn't have a knowledge of knots like the Maritimes, but perhaps she could make herself a rope with the knife and those sheets. It would be Ontario footing the bill for all the damaged hotel rooms anyway, and that thought just had Alberta tickled pink.

The chair at the hotel's desk looked heavy enough to break the glass, but that would have to be the final stage of her escape plan. Step one was getting herself packed up and creating some kind of plausible noise to cover up the sound of ripping fabric.

Alberta immediately started to throw all of her things into her small suitcase, folding up her clothes and grabbing all her things from the washroom. She probably wasn't going to have time to get into something less formal and more plane-worthy, so she changed into a hoodie and some jeans, stuffing her suitcase haphazardly with her formal clothes.

As soon as all her things were packed into her carry-on travel suitcase and her purse was ready to go, Alberta walked into the suite's washroom and inspected what she had to work with.

Turning on the shower would probably do the trick, but she'd need to put something soft in there to soak up the sound of the water- if it was just drops hitting the bottom of the tub, they'd surely hear.

The blonde grabbed one of the bed's pillows and placed it carefully in the tub bottom, then quickly and carefully turned the shower on and up to max, pulling her arm out before her hoodie got completely soaked.

There.

Next, the bedsheets. Alberta wasn't much for prison escape movies, but she was pretty sure she'd want the strips about a foot wide apiece, so she could fold them over when she tied them. She pulled all the sheets off the bed, and set about slicing them up; the roar of the shower successfully concealed the sound of ripping fabric from the two provinces stationed as guards outside.

It wasn't very long before she had a pile of shredded fabric, the comforter, bed cover, and all the intervening bits of fabric having fallen victim to her knife. The tearing done, Alberta started to knot them up into a long cord like a madwoman. Her mind was racing, and it wasn't entirely because of the panic. The voices were chanting at her again, and it seemed to speed her fingertips on as she tied.

She would lay three of the strips together, twist them up into a cord and knot the cord to keep it together at various points. Then she tied on a new piece and the process began anew.

As Alberta worked, she thought carefully about her plan. She took a brief break in the tying to pull out her phone and check that there was a flight from Kingston to Edmonton- and to her delight, there was. It took off in about two hours, which suited her fine. Alberta snapped up a last-minute ticket from her phone and resumed working.

What to tie it to? The bed seemed a good choice. She'd also thought better of chucking the chair through the plate glass; the chair was a wooden thing with four legs, much better suited to barricading the door shut. She'd chuck the desk lamp through instead, since it seemed heavy enough to work.

Her suitcase was thankfully a duffel bag- wheeled case hybrid, and it could probably take a three-story fall. Probably. She hoped. It was just small enough to fit in an airplane's overhead bins, and as long as it landed on its cloth front, she'd be fine.

As Alberta tied the last few knots in her rope some time later on, she stabbed the knife into the mattress since it obviously couldn't go with her on the plane and went to shut off the shower. They were going to hear this, one way or another.

She spent a bit of time very carefully securing the free end of her climbing rope to the bed, making absolutely certain it wouldn't come undone. As soon as that was done, she took the chair from under the desk and jammed it under the doorknob at an angle. Anyone trying to get in would now have to shove past the wooden chair whose legs dug firmly into the carpet.

Alberta took a deep breath as she unplugged the lamp.

Time to get the hell out of here.

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in the sky over America someplace..._

Canada took another sip of his hot chocolate and looked out the plane's window. The government had purchased him and his provinces and territories a private Lear jet to use, by way of a bailout for Bombardier. It was a marvel of engineering, it truly was, but Canada always felt a bit guilty using it. One flight on this thing inflated his yearly carbon footprint to elephantine proportions, and he always wanted to minimize his emissions where he could.

Still, it was the only reliable way for him to get to Cuba's place; it wasn't that Air Canada didn't offer flights to Havana, it was simply that he was often called back home on short notice to deal with one thing or another, like he was right now.

So the private jet was the only way to go, he weakly rationalized to himself.

Canada sighed and stood up, walking up to the cockpit.

He knocked on the door politely until it opened, and leaned in.

"Hi, Captain Price. How's it going?" he asked, looking at the baffling array of controls.

The captain was a fairly handsome man with black hair and blue eyes who lived in Calgary when he wasn't bussing Canuck ass from place to place.

He looked over his shoulder and grinned.

"Ah, it's goin' good, Canada. Enjoying the flight?"

The purple-eyed personification sighed.

"Not really, but that's not your fault. How far is it to Kingston?"

"'bout another three hours or so. Sit tight, we'll be awhile yet. I know it's been a long haul, but we'll get there soon."

The captain spoke in an almost fatherly way, reassuring the personification who was centuries his elder that it would work out. Canada couldn't help but smile; Captain Price was a generally positive guy, and he was one of his favourite pilots.

His co-pilot, First officer Walt, was too busy checking the instruments to respond, but he did look over his shoulder to give Canada a little wave as the personification left the cockpit.

Three more hours.

* * *

 _Meanwhile in Kingston..._

The sound of smashing glass rang through the air as the desk lamp went sailing out the third-story window. Fragments of glass rained down upon the garden, followed shortly thereafter by Alberta's suitcase. It tumbled through the air, landing on the soft fabric part amid the wood chips of the flowerbed.

A strange sound followed the shattering- that of Alberta unlocking her rental car.

Alberta stuffed the knife in her hoodie pocket and wrapped her hand in a pillowcase to snap off all the jagged fragments of the frame that jutted up like crooked teeth from a shark's jaw, any one of which could potentially slice the rope and send her tumbling to her doom.

That done, she dropped the rope to the ground below even as Newfoundland and Nova Scotia started to hammer on her door.

"ALBERTA!? WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON IN THERE!?"

With that, she clutched onto her rope and started to descend.

The movies made the task look a LOT easier than it truly was. Shimmying down the side had been her initial plan, not realizing that there was another window ten feet below hers. The pane of glass offered her runners no grip at all, and she slipped, jerking the rope taut. Keenly aware of her precarious position, Alberta began to carefully shimmy down the swath of fabric, ignoring the shouting coming from below her somewhere.

A few agonizing minutes later she was on the ground, running flat-out across the pavement for her vehicle. There was shouting behind her and she faintly recognized Manitoba's voice in the cacophony, but it didn't matter to her.

She reached the car in a few more strides, throwing open the back seat and tossing her suitcase in without any more delay. Alberta threw the driver's door open and leaped in herself, slamming it and locking it right as Ontario caught up to her and started pounding on her window.

Alberta smirked and stuck her tongue out at him, jamming the keys in the ignition and backing out as fast as possible.

Saskatchewan was forced to jump out of the way, and PEI got creamed by the rear fender- that was a bruise that was going to sting come morning.

"Later, fuckers." Alberta muttered as she lined up the rental with the exit to the parking lot and stomped on the gas.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Well that was just gratuitous amounts of stupid. Don't worry, the stupid speeds up from here on out._

 _Air Canada doesn't actually offer flights from Kingston direct to Edmonton that I can see, but if that's the deal breaker for you, you might be reading the wrong fanfic._

 _As always, reviews, follows, and favourites are greatly appreciated!_


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

* * *

 ** _Several hours later, in Calgary..._**

 _To whomever finds this document:_

 _This is the last Will and Testament of The City of Calgary._

 _...Jesus, fuck that flowery shit. I don't have much time so I'll cut the shit:_

 _My house and personal effects are to be sold and donated to the homeless shelter, the Mustard Seed, and other charities around the city._

 _All the money in all of my bank accounts, yes, every last fucking cent that isn't used to pay outstanding credit card debt or funeral expenses, is to be donated to the Alberta Children's Hospital. Yes,_ _ **all of it,**_ _with two exceptions:_

 _-I would like for my hat, if it remains in salvageable condition, to be donated to the Glenbow museum, and for a plexiglass case to be constructed to contain it. It's an important symbol of the city's volunteering spirit and it would be a tragedy to waste it._

 _-I would like a silicone replica to be made of my genitalia and mounted to a plank, then nailed to Edmonton's wall._

 _I would also like to bequeath specific assets to the following individuals:_

 _\- I would like Vancouver's bong to be returned to him. Sorry I keep forgetting, man._

 _-I would like Regina's bra and panties to be returned to her. I'm really sorry about that one time we got drunk, please don't pee on my grave._

 _-To Edmonton, I leave my "Oilers Suck Cocks" Enamel sign, as well as all my crusty pairs of ginch. Do not launder the ginch before presenting them to him, since he's probably the fucker that killed me._

 _-To Ottawa I bequeath the knowledge that he's got a stick jammed up his ass and he needs to stop being such a bureaucratic fuckface._

 _-To Toronto, I leave fifty_ (50) _facefirst slams into a desk. The individual in charge of my estate is encouraged to slam Toronto's face into a desk as many additional times as they wish._

Calgary looked over the paper in front of him and nodded in satisfaction, signing it and putting the cap back on his pen. That done, he carefully folded it up, put it in an envelope, uncapping his pen to scrawl 'MY WILL PLEASE READ' on the back.

Alberta's truck was packed with enough food, beer, and tents to support a frat house camping trip for a week, and all Calgary had left to do was lock up his house and flee for the foothills where waited sweet salvation.

Or maybe just cross the border and spend a week in BC until this all blew over.

Either way, even as Calgary taped his will to the table, he kept his sixth sense wide open for incoming Personifications. It was like putting his "antennae' out, except their range was the whole city and not just right in front of him.

Calgary froze.

 _"_ _He's here."_

Edmonton was in the city limits, having entered from the north, and was screaming down the road at a pretty disquieting pace. Calgary immediately grabbed his backpack and his keys and ran for his front door, running onto his porch and locking it behind him.

The fucker wasn't gonna get him. He wasn't gonna be Corvus's slave.

Calgary bolted for Alberta's truck, leaping into the driver's seat and buckling himself in. He'd been thrown in the slammer in the past for not wearing a seatbelt, and what with the police having put a bounty on his head...

...He was going to have to actually drive the speed limit for once in his life.

Well, as soon as he was out of the city limits, anyway. Can't ticket what's not speeding in front of your radar gun!

Alberta's truck started with a roar, and Calgary backed out of his driveway, slightly unnerved by Edmonton's velocity. The man was a fucking homing missile on wheels, but Calgary knew exactly where he was, which wasn't something Edmonton could say.

Calgary pulled onto the main road a few minutes later and started cruising along, keeping an eye on his speed. What he didn't notice as he left his community was the suspiciously clean, blacked-out SUV that had been parked on the grass by the exit pulling onto the road silently after him.

Calgary was initially doing his usually speed, I.E. way too fast, when he spotted a cop car in his rear-view mirror. Spotting it wasn't easy, what with the douche in the SUV tailgating him like a complete fuck, but he did. The city clamped down on an instinctual urge to flip the guy off, instead focusing on not getting arrested for now.

Calgary feathered on his brakes so the SUV would get a good idea of what he was gonna do, then slowed down to the legal limit.

The cop car pulled up alongside him and just...coasted.

Like they were planes flying in tandem.

Calgary bit his lip nervously. This entire situation was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

He checked his speed. The road was suspiciously empty, just him, the cop, and the SUV. Was he maybe speeding?

No. He was actually five under the limit. He was totally in the clear.

Calgary swallowed. He needed to get the fuck out of here, and fast. Edmonton was getting way, WAY too close for his tastes. His brother was on the same road as him, too. How the fuck did Edmonton manage to get going so fast? He couldn't spot the cops!

His brother suddenly veered off to the right, and Calgary breathed a sigh of relief. Edmonton was going to his house, and still didn't know where the fuck he was.

And then a black SWAT van came screaming around the corner and Calgary knew he was fucked.

He stomped on the gas, flipping a switch on the wheel to start the NOS, and Alberta's truck took off down the road like a bat straight out of hell, leaving the cop car and the SUV in the dust.

The cop switched on his lights, and okay, so they weren't fucking around, he really was wanted by the law.

Calgary clenched the wheel, grinding his teeth. Fuck that. If the cops thought they had him on the ropes, they had no idea how good of a driver he was at high speed.

The speedometer climbed upwards, 120, 140, 160-

Calgary's eyes went wide and he slammed on the brakes.

Fifteen cop cars parked on both sides of the road and on the median, and Calgary could see the fucking spike strips they'd laid out-

Somehow, some way, he managed to fishtail his way to a near-complete stop, the truck's front tires rolling over the first layer of spike strips and going flat.

Instantly the cops started pouring out of their squad cars, pulling out handguns, shotguns, you name it, and training them all on him.

Calgary wanted to cry. He was fucked. He was so fucked.

He opened the door slowly, letting go of the wheel and stepping out of the vehicle. Instantly he was deafened by a cacophony of clicking actions as the swarm of police officers primed their weapons for firing.

Calgary slowly put his hands up in the air.

"PUT THEM BEHIND YOUR HEAD!" a cop yelled, "YOU'RE UNDER ARREST!"

"Yeah, I fucking figured that out pretty well." Calgary growled, "HOW, ASSHOLE!? I'M WEARING A FUCKING HAT!"

This seemed to throw the police for a loop, until one of the cops approached him and put the gun to the back of his head.

"DROP THE GUN AND GET ON THE GROUND, KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!"

Calgary snarled.

"I DON'T HAVE A FUCKING GUN, YOU ASSHOLE! MY GUN'S IN THE BACK OF THE TRUCK, **AND IT'S NOT EVEN MINE!"**

"Not helping your case, buddy." The cop behind him muttered, "Lay down and accept it."

Calgary slowly, grudgingly, sank to his knees, even as the cop car, the SUV, and what he'd initially thought was a SWAT van pulled up behind them.

He laid down facefirst on the hot pavement, the cop behind him keeping a gun trained to his head as someone else came and cuffed his hands together.

They made him get up (the guy with the gun at least had the decency to adjust his hat for him, because it was about to fall off) and walked him to the blacked-out van.

"You have the right to remain silent..." Asshole with the gun was reading him off his rights, and Calgary wasn't listening.

Edmonton was in his house. He could feel his brother running around his house, looking for...something.

They opened the doors to the back of the van and shoved him inside. It had some benches to sit on, and the asshole with the gun climbed in there with him as they shut the door, doing up the city's seatbelt for him.

Calgary snarled at him.

"You know something?" he spat at the officer, "You're a fucking **_cunt!"_**

* * *

 _Earlier, in Kingston..._

Ontario waited patiently in the airport's departure area set aside for private jets and the like. Canada would be arriving soon, and he'd asked the tower to radio the Learjet and tell the pilot there'd been a change of plans.

The fact that Alberta had somehow managed to escape was driving Ontario up the wall. He wanted to slap her silly for trashing her hotel room, and then BC shortly thereafter for smoking that fucking joint.

Speaking of BC...Ontario checked his phone and sent her a quick text message.

 **Ontario: Remind me again what your plan was, because last I heard it was "Let's all run off to Edmonton to get killed!"**

BC took a while to respond.

 **BC: fuk u man.**

 **BC: pln is pnch corvus n the face**

Ontario facepalmed and thumbed over to someone who would be a bit more eloquent, if vulgar.

 **Ontario: Remind me again why I let you four go off on this suicide mission?**

 **Manitoba: one, go fuck urself. two, you translated sask's fuckin form thing and were gonna double-cross lil sis**

Ontario sighed deeply.

The paper Saskatchewan had signed was a contract, and from what little he could glean from it (it being the last paper in the document and all) it pertained to a possible merger between the three provinces prior to Alberta separating. She, or her boss, fully intended to eviscerate the country upon her departure.

Granted, Saskatchewan was _arguably_ safe, since he had _technically_ voided his signature by signing with his left hand, but Ontario didn't have the heart to tell the farmer that it was a fairly weak defence and if he did get off on that technicality, he should count himself lucky.

BC was straight-up screwed though. There was no way she was going to weasel her way out of that.

The "double cross" Manitoba was referring to, then, would probably involve Saskatchewan and BC feigning loyalty to Premier Corvus's cause, and getting Alberta to do...

Something.

Ontario got the distinct feeling that they had no idea what they were doing.

Saskatchewan was going in pursuit because he was worried about his sister, which was ditto for BC; but Ontario had the feeling that Québec was in way, WAY over his head. This wasn't anything like what happened in the seventies, not by a long shot.

For one thing, Bourassa was (arguably) not conspiring against the government.

And as for Manitoba, well, the man was deeply frustrated and probably figured he'd fix things by punching people.

A Learjet pulled in on the tarmac, and Ontario could sense the nation's patriarch aboard. His sense wasn't nearly as precise as that of a city- he'd done a test, where he had to find Nova Scotia in a large warehouse blindfolded, and not only had he bumped into quite a few things, he'd been about three feet off.

Which was interesting. When Hamilton had performed the same test, the city didn't even put his hands out in front of him, avoiding the obstacles as if he could see them and poking the maritime province square in the chest.

Canada had walked in completely the wrong direction three times. He was usually about ten meters off, if not more.

Size certainly seemed to correlate with inaccuracy of a personification's senses.

The jet pulled to a stop, and the ground crew scrambled to bring out the wheeled staircase that they used for private aircraft. Only the big commercial aircraft got to use the entry chute system here.

Ontario liked to think of it as the "Rich Prick Tax" especially in the winter.

An attendant lead him onto the tarmac, and he ran towards the plane. Canada was just walking down the steps when he saw Ontario streaking towards him.

"Ontario?" he called, "What's going on?"

Ontario panted as he scrambled up the steps with his suitcase in hand.

"Get back on the plane! We've got to get to Edmonton. Alberta escaped and she's heading there now!"

"Where's all the others?"

"Maritimes don't care, Québec and the west are already waiting for their flight. Let's go, Let's go, let's go!"

Canada balked at that.

"Two jets for six people? That's really wasteful. Can't they just take ours-"

"They already booked their tickets. Get on the plane, Canada!"

Canada sighed and turned around, nodding at a confused captain price on the way back in.

"Going to Edmonton, Captain. Gonna be a long day for you...Sorry about that."

Captain Price shrugged. "Eh, all part of being a pilot. I had worse when I worked for Air Canada."

* * *

 _Meanwhile in Calgary..._

They quite literally _threw_ him onto the floor of the holding cell.

Calgary hit the cold concrete with a painful _"oof!",_ his hat tumbling off his head at the impact.

The cell door clanged behind him, and he shakily climbed to his feet with a good deal of difficulty- his hands were still cuffed.

"I'M TELLING YOU, I'M INNOCENT! YOU HAVEN'T GOT ANY PROOF I DID WHATEVER IT WAS CORVUS SAYS I DID! LET ME OUT!"Calgary yelled in a panic, panting and looking around for any means of escape.

He could feel his brother approaching the police station. He could FEEL his brother's heart beating, could FEEL him coming.

He'd been tied to the tracks and the train was thundering towards him at a leisurely pace.

Edmonton was taking his sweet time, idling along at street-legal speeds, clearly no longer in a hurry, and Calgary was going to scream.

"LET ME GO!" he yelled desperately. The cops were his people! These two guarding his cell, he knew them, they were his!

He could feel their souls glowing in the darkness, and he desperately reached out with his antennae, trying to connect with them- to touch the flame and beg for it to let him go.

"Sorry, Cal. No can do. Orders from the premier himself. You're an enemy of Alberta and you need to be detained until you can be dealt with."

Calgary choked on the words he'd been about to say.

"I-Enemy of Alberta?! I'M THE MOTHERFUCKING _CITY OF CALGARY,_ **_YOU FUCKING LUNATICS!"_**

The cop chuckled. "I've heard worse. And you are an enemy of Alberta- you're trying to prevent us from separating from Canada's fucking bullshit."

The other officer, a woman, looked at her partner. "Is the other guy almost here?"

Calgary swallowed. Yes. Edmonton was pulling into a parking stall as they spoke.

And just like that, the cowboy panicked.

He threw himself against the bars of his cell door in a full-body tackle, screaming for release, begging, pleading.

He was a bull in a slaughterhouse, on the chute to the kill floor.

"LET ME OUT! PLEASE, PLEASE, OH GOD, LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT!" he screamed, because Edmonton was _here,_ he was walking _towards him, He wasn't ten fucking feet away-_

Calgary looked up as the officers unlocked the door, and started to back away from the man that stepped inside.

His eyes.

His EYES.

They were...they were so...so _empty._ They were hollow blue pits, where his brother should have been. They were colder than ice and emptier than a frozen tundra.

His brother was holding both hands in his hoodie pocket, looking concerned. But it completely fell flat; the cold emptiness in his eyes ruined any chance Edmonton had of looking like he cared about his brother's wellbeing.

Calgary slammed himself against the far corner of his cell, shaking his head.

"No. No. NO. GET OUT! GO AWAY! FUCKING GET OUT!" he screamed at his brother, _"DON'T GET ANY CLOSER YOU FUCKING BASTARD!"_

Edmonton looked...hurt?

"Cal, calm down. Really. I don't want to hurt you, okay?"

And his voice was smooth and soothing like he was trying to calm a frightened animal, but Calgary wasn't having any of it.

" ** _FUCK YOU!_** YOU'RE GONNA DRAG ME OFF TO CORVUS AND HE'LL MAKE ME INTO A ZOMBIE LIKE **YOU!"** the southern city howled.

"Cal, shh. Listen to me. You don't understand. Premier Corvus is trying to help-"

And that was as far as Edmonton got before his brother body-checked him full in the front (who said hockey training was good for nothing?) and ran through the open cell door. His hat lay on the ground, forgotten in the city's terror, and Calgary sprinted desperately for the doors. No plan, no premeditation, just a primal, animal instinct that screamed at him to flee for his life.

He stopped short at the end of the hallway. Several police officers were standing in his way, holding pistols, and Calgary wasn't thinking.

He turned and tried to run the other way, hoping to maybe shove by Edmonton and get to the end of the hallway where perhaps there was some means of escape-

Edmonton sighed and pulled a revolver out of his hoodie pocket.

 _"_ _Calgary._ Stop fucking around." His brother's eyes were so cold, so empty, and Calgary wanted to scream. Tears, tears of panic and terror were trailing down his cheeks. He wanted- he wanted- he wanted **_out._** He wanted out more than he'd ever wanted out before in his life.

Edmonton sighed and lowered the revolver, putting it back in the pocket of his hoodie and withdrawing a small bottle that had a piece of cloth tied loosely around the neck.

"Calm down, Cal. It's gonna be okay. You don't have to worry about anything..." Edmonton was smiling, but it wasn't right, it was wrong, it was so cold and empty and _wrong,_ and Calgary was shaking his head, paralyzed with fear. This was it.

Corvus had him.

"Look, Cal, it's gonna be alright, I promise. Premier Corvus will show you the light and...and you won't have to be scared anymore. I know it seems frightening, but it's all for the best, honest."

Edmonton pulled the cork out of the bottle and held it in his palm, pulling the rag off the neck and soaking it in the pungent substance.

And despite everything that was happening, despite his own mindless animal fear, Calgary laughed. Terrified, insane laughter, as the tears spilled down his cheeks and he hiccupped on his own words.

"Fu-Fuckin' Ch-Chloroform? Like a goddamn Ti-Tintin villain?" he choked out, the panic in his chest having reached a fever pitch.

Edmonton looked almost apologetic.

"Sorry, Cal. All I could think of to calm you down enough for transport. I knew you'd go apeshit on me, and, well, a needle wasn't gonna work. And by the way, this is ether, not chloroform."

A police officer came up behind him and grabbed both sides of his head, keeping him from jerking it away. Instinct screamed at him to check the officer and run, but...the officer was one of his. He couldn't hurt the man. He _couldn't._

Edmonton pressed the foul-smelling rag to his brother's face and held it there, counting slowly, calmly.

And the minutes ticked by, but it didn't matter. Eventually, Calgary succumbed, eyes finally fluttering closed as he spiralled into the blackness of unconsciousness.

Edmonton coughed in embarrassment. "...I, Er, I was under the impression that it would be a bit faster than it was...Regardless, we've only got a few minutes. Load him into my truck, would you? The seat in the back's been specially prepared for him...and don't forget his hat, or he'll be completely rabid when he wakes up."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _-I probably should have mentioned this six chapters ago, but 'ginch' is prairie-speak for undies. Crusty ginch is therefore the pinnacle of bachelordom._

 _-Learjets! That thing Artemis Fowl uses to get around 'cause he's cool like that! Guess what, they're made in Québec by Bombardier._

 _Also, I know nothing about Kingston's airport or Ether. Thought you should know._

 _Well this turned out to be a fucking doorstopper of a chapter! 3000 words, BEFORE the author's notes! We're already at 23k words here and that's just my word document!_

 _It's impressive, to say the least._

 _As always, reviews, follows and favourites encourage me to write you more walls o' text like this thing!_


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in the sky over Manitoba..._

The Boeing 767 screamed through the skies at half the speed of sound, painted in bright teal and purple, the livery of the domestic airline Westjet. It had been the only flight that Saskatchewan had been able to find for the four of them out of Kingston, and while he was normally indifferent to the airline, he knew a small fact about their operations that left him initially hesitant to choose them.

Westjet's corporate headquarters were in Calgary.

This fact only got more unnerving when, at the service counter, the kind lady had said something borderline bizarre:

"Oh, to Edmonton? The tickets are actually free for the next little while, provided it's one-way only."

Saskatchewan's jaw had dropped.

"Free-free _plane tickets?!"_ he'd echoed in complete disbelief. That was either too good to be true, or there was a serious catch.

"Yeah, I don't know either. Message came down from corporate, though- all one-way flights to locations in Alberta are free for the next little while."

So he'd immediately snapped them up four tickets, because what the fuck, right? They didn't have any bags to check, so that just made the whole thing completely free, as opposed to mostly free. But there was still that niggling suspicion that it was some kind of a trick.

Their little motley crew (which Manitoba had immediately nicknamed the "Eh Team" because his brother was awful) had ended up in pretty good seats, too- it wasn't a large plane, with two seats on each side of a single aisle, and they'd managed to get a whole row on a mostly empty flight. There was just one small problem with the whole arrangement, and it was the fucking TV's in the seat backs.

The seat in front of him had a little satellite TV inset into it, and Saskatchewan growled at it. He'd tried turning the brightness all the way down, and nothing was happening- the damn thing wouldn't turn off. That was already plenty annoying, since he preferred to sleep on the plane, but periodically he'd notice the screen go black for a fraction of a fraction of a second-

...That was probably his imagination though.

Québec was sitting next to him, and the Frenchie had his headset plugged into the armrest. It looked like he was watching some kind of French-language soap opera, or something- either way, it seemed to be rather emotionally gripping, since he seemed to be on the verge of tears.

Or at least...it was initially.

Saskatchewan looked out the window, smiling down at the endless flat prairie stretching below them. It was a beautiful sight, and more importantly, in meant they were only an hour away at the most.

 _"_ _Strong...an'...free...strong...an'...free..."_

He whipped his head to look back at Québec, eyes wide. Was the Frenchman chanting in **_English!?_**

Saskatchewan's eyes went wide.

His adopted brother was slumped in his seat, completely transfixed by the screen in front of him, which seemed to just be playing the soap opera as before. His mouth hung open slightly, and his eyes were completely glazed over.

Saskatchewan shuddered.

"Québec?!"

 _"_ _Strong...an'...free...strong...an'...free..."_

"QUEBEC?!"

 _"_ _Strong...an'...free...strong...an'...free..."_

Saskatchewan's eyes flicked down to where his brother's headset was plugged into the armrest and ripped the little blue plug from the socket.

 _"_ _QUEBEC?!"_

The Frenchman blinked a few times, grunting in surprise and looking at Saskatchewan in a daze.

"... _Frère?_ "

He sounded...dazed. Lost. Like...like he'd fallen asleep, and had just woken up from it.

Saskatchewan swallowed.

"Don't...Don't listen to any more of that show. You, uh, you were...chanting. In, uh, in English."

The look of disgust and horror on Québec's face was almost worth the fact that his brother had nearly been brainwashed by that fucking premier's crazy propaganda.

But...he'd learned something; the means by which Corvus had indoctrinated the people of Alberta so thoroughly and effectively was entirely auditory.

Which meant that only the English-speakers in the province were susceptible. Granted, that was practically everyone; English was the only language that Albertans used for commerce and communication, and as such, anyone who hadn't emigrated in old age was expected to understand it.

It was only then that Saskatchewan noticed the flight attendant looming over them.

"Sir?" she said politely, "You seem to be rather upset...are you alright?"

Saskatchewan took a deep breath.

 _Alberta's going to hell in a handbasket and my sister IS Alberta, so uh, no, I'm not._

...Is what he WOULD have said if he was stupid. But the farmer put on his best fake smile, and shook his head.

"No, uh...my brother is a bit hard of hearing, and I needed to get his attention."

"Oh, I see. I trust he's doing okay?"

Saskatchewan nodded, and breathed a sigh of relief as she walked away.

"That was close...How's Manny and BC doing?" he whispered to Québec.

The Frenchman swallowed. "Ah..."

He pointed across the aisle, and Saskatchewan's eyes went wide.

 ** _"_** ** _Strong and Free...Strong and Free...Strong and Free..."_**

* * *

 _Meanwhile, aboard a much fancier plane..._

First Officer Walt yawned, stretching out from his little nap. The captain had offered to take the last leg of the flight, since he'd taken a powernap once they'd gotten to cruising altitude; and his co-pilot had taken the opportunity to doze off somewhere over Winnipeg.

Being a good co-pilot, he immediately swept his eyes over the instruments to familiarize himself with any changes in altitude, attitude, pitch (no, no, and no) and of course, their fuel readings, (yes, but that was to be expected...but the fuel they had left was...really low, actually, like they'd made a sudden detour.)

Then he glanced at the GPS- and frowned.

"Uh, Captain Price?"

"Yeah?" the captain was very casual in his tone of voice, sounding rather relaxed...and happy.

First Officer Walt looked at the GPS with a worried frown. "Uh, Keith?" he said, using the Captain's first name, "...The GPS says we're flying...south. Over...Red Deer. Now, this isn't my stomping ground or anything, but...Isn't Edmonton the other way?"

The captain nodded. "Yeah, the tower redirected us to Calgary, for some reason. We'll be allowed to land up there in a couple hours. Call 'em yourself and ask if you don't believe me."

The first officer raised an eyebrow.

"...Keith? You alright? You look tired, man. Maybe I should take over."

Captain Price shook his head. "No, I'm good... sorta. Could you go back there and get me a coffee?"

The first officer raised an eyebrow. He trusted Captain Price with his life, but the man was acting...off.

He slowly unbuckled himself, standing up from his seat.

"...Okay, Price. If you say so. But after that, I'm radioing the tower, got it?"

The captain nodded.

Walt stepped out of the cockpit, stretching his arms and legs and shaking out all the residual stiffness in his limbs.

Ontario looked up from his book as the co-pilot passed and smiled.

"Hello, Officer Walt. How goes it up there?"

The man was one of his, Ontario knew. The knowledge made him feel naturally comfortable around the man, like he was a long-lost friend. Born in Brampton, brought up in Guelph; he'd been flying for years.

The officer shrugged. "Captain Price is...acting a bit weird. He's probably just tired, though. He asked me to get him a coffee-"

Suddenly, a voice from the cockpit interrupted them.

"...Sorry, Walt. It's not you."

And then a huge steel door slammed shut.

The pilot's compartment in private aircraft had a similar bulkhead to that of passenger jetliners, but generally the Canadian Learjet's bulkhead was kept open; the pilots knew their passengers well, and there was no need for the added security.

Unless the pilot was trying to keep the rest of them out.

Walt ran to the door and started to pound on it frantically. " **PRICE?!** PRICE, WHAT'S GOING ON IN THERE?! **_PRIIIIIIICE!"_**

Captain Price sat down in his seat, putting his headphones back on and letting the faint white-noise static that was coming from the ATC tower in Calgary International Airport wash over his mind.

 _"_ _Hello, YYC Air Traffic Control? This is Captain Price, PJ1867."_

 _"_ _YYC to PJ1867, we copy. What is your situation?"_

 _"_ _I'm en route and running low on fuel; I don't have enough to make it to Springbank."_

 _"_ _Roger that, we'll clear the runway for you. What is your cargo?"_

The captain relaxed. He really had flown over Edmonton's airport, but the Air Traffic control there had...mellowed him out.

There'd been someone there talking to him, talking in his ear; it felt like the commercials he sometimes saw when watching TV back at his house. The ATController asked him to identify his passengers, and for some reason, he did.

Then ATC and him had...a little chat.

About right, and wrong. And all the while that...that white noise had been playing in his ears, and making it...so hard to think. And the things they were saying sounded so good, so _right,_ and honourable... and all the while he was getting lower and lower in the holding stack, the endless spiral of planes slowly revolving in for a landing on the airport's runway.

And finally Captain Price had snapped.

 _"_ _My cargo is, uh, two enemies of the province of Alberta, as well as my co-pilot, First Officer Walt. Please don't detain him, he's my- He's a good man. He's no traitor, and he's no enemy. And he's no parasite."_

 _"_ _Roger that, PJ1867. We'll have officers ready to extract them. You do your province proud, Captain. Just land that bird safely and no harm will come to your co-pilot."_

Captain Price swelled a little at the compliment. Well, that was certainly true, wasn't it? He was an excellent pilot, and he could land this Learjet with one engine and his co-pilot banging desperately on the door.

 _"_ _PRIIIIICE! OPEN THE DOOR, PRICE!_ _ **HAVE YOU GONE INSANE!?"**_

The captain smiled as he lined himself up with the runway and brought her in for a gentle, stylish landing. No tail striking on his watch, no sir.

Oh, he should probably tell them to sit down.

He flipped a switch on the console as the plane started to veer.

 _"_ _Hello, this is your captain speaking. We'll be landing in Calgary shortly and divesting our aircraft of a couple of_ _parasites_ _. Walt, please take a seat and buckle up- I really don't want you to get hurt."_

Outside the cockpit, the first officer's eyes went wide, and he scrambled for a seat. Ontario and Canada had gotten up to try to air him in begging the pilot to open the door and explain what was going on, but...the ground was approaching, and none of them wanted to get tossed about the inside of the plane like basketballs.

Ontario buckled himself into the armchair- and looked at Canada in confusion.

"...Parasites?!" he echoed, "What, does he mean us-?"

And then Ontario caught the look on Canada's face.

Canada could sense their souls. Their heartbeats. Their thoughts. He was a nation, a nation with the ability to withstand so many more souls than Ontario could imagine. And he could sense the average mood of the people in this city, the average of all those millions of thoughts and feelings.

And the man had gone pale as a ghost.

 _"_ _...Ontario."_ He whispered as the plane dropped the last hundred feet, _"...They want to_ _ **kill us."**_

Ontario raised an eyebrow, and then swore as the plane slammed into the tarmac violently, then swore again as the pilot threw the engines in full reverse to slow them down as they thundered to a stop.

"They-That's fucking ridiculous!" Ontario scoffed, "Me, maybe, but you're their nation-"

"Ontario. **They want to** ** _kill us_** **."**

The eastern province swallowed and reached down to adjust his red tie, brown eyes catching Canada's drift and looking at the floor.

"Ah. I...I see." He said quietly as the plane slowly trundled towards the docking chutes, "...That...might...cause some issues."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Late writing, but I had a doctor's appointment, okay? We can't always update twice a day._

 _Springbank is a small airport on the outskirts of Calgary for private planes._

 _Also, I'll be honest: I actually like Westjet, a lot. I promise they're not actually evil. I also promise I'm not cashing any checks for that, but the thing is, Air Canada has reeeeeeally bitchy flight attendants._

 _Or maybe that's just the flights I end up stuck on._

 _Ah well._

 _As always, reviews, follows and favourites are greatly appreciated!_


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

* * *

 _Many years ago..._

 _"_ _Mama? Why do you take those pills?"_

 _Little Christopher was an inquisitive lad, and he looked up at his mother with his big brown eyes expectantly._

 _His mother smiled wearily, popping the pills in her mouth and swallowing them down with a glass of water. The window was open to let some fresh air into their grotty little apartment; they were lucky enough to have a ground-floor flat, but that did come with its problems, such as the homeless tramp currently sitting against the wall under their windowsill._

 _"_ _Well, Christopher..." she said calmly, putting the cap back on her meds and putting them away in a cupboard, "Mama has...problems. And sometimes when I was a girl, I would hear things and see things that weren't real, and they scared me terribly. These medications make sure I don't see anything that isn't real. But you should never, ever take someone else's pills, Christopher. That's very dangerous, and it could make you very, VERY sick. And I need these pills...so I can take care of you."_

 _Christopher nodded._

 _"_ _Now then, I think it's time for you to go to school and me to go to work. Shall we?"_

 _Christopher nodded, putting his backpack on and following his mum out the door._

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in Edmonton..._

Corvus put the photograph down and looked at the telephone on his desk. It had started to ring incessantly, and he sighed and picked it up.

"Premier Corvus speaking."

"CORVUS, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?"

The premier winced and put him on speakerphone, turning the volume way down.

"I don't understand what you mean, Prime Minister Slate, sir," he said innocently, "What seems to be the issue?"

"YOU KNOW DAMN WELL WHAT YOU'RE DOING, YOU IDIOT! YOU'RE MORE CORRUPT THAN I AM, AND THAT'S SAYING A HELL OF A LOT!"

Corvus groaned- his head was really starting to hurt. The Prime Minister was infamous for his past life as a drill Sergeant, and unfortunately, the one thing he'd never been able to unlearn from his time in the military was his compulsion to shout all the time.

"Prime Minister, I'm right here, you don't have to-"

"DID I ASK YOU TO SPEAK, FUCKER?!"

"Slate, I'm a fucking _premier_ , not a recruit in bootcamp."

There was a pause on the other end of the line as the Prime Minister considered this. Corvus was utterly baffled as to how the man got elected- his commercials were just annoying attack ads without any sort of behavioural or thought manipulation, and he barked like an angry dog to communicate with everyone besides his wife and children.

"CORVUS, YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T LEGALLY DO THIS. SEPARATION ISN'T ALLOWED IN THE CONSTITUTION-"

"That never stopped Québec. And to quote one of your predecessors, **_Just watch me."_**

Slate froze up again.

"...CORVUS, IF ANYONE SHOULD BE USING THAT QUOTE, IT SHOULD BE ME. JUST WATCH **ME** CALL IN THE ARMY ON YOUR FAT ASS. YOU'RE GONNA REGRET EVER GETTING YOUR STUPID FUCKING PROVINCE ALL STIRRED UP, AND SO ARE YOUR PEOPLE."

Corvus smirked.

"That's not very nice thing to say, Mister Slate. It would be a terrible shame if someone had been recording you as you said that, and sent the recording to the local media. That would be simply catastrophic."

The penny dropped, and the Prime minister went very, very quiet.

"YOU DIDN'T."

"Perhaps I did. Now, Mister Slate, I'd advise you to hang up before you dig yourself any deeper. I have some important business to attend to with Calgary."

And to spare the hapless Prime minister further humiliation, Corvus hung up and finished his recording of the Prime Minister's words.

He thought about it for a moment, and picked up the phone again, pressing a button to speed-dial one of his cabinet ministers. Specifically, the Minister of Public Education.

One of the cheekier members of the opposition had superglued some little wooden letters to the man's door so that it looked like "Minister of Public Re-Education." But those shenanigans were a thing of the past. After that meeting with the police and the army and the councils of both cities, even the opposition and the independents and the smaller parties nobody gave a rat's ass about were marching to the beat of his drum.

"Hello? Yes, it's Corvus...listen, I have a recording of Mr. Slate here, and I'll send it to you...yes, I need you to just trim it down and send it to the local media. You'll know the part I'm talking about. Excellent. Goodbye."

And he hung up, sending off the sound file with a few deft jabs of his phone.

That done, Corvus stood up, stroking his mother's picture fondly as he headed out of his office, heading to the legislature's basement.

Calgary had some parasitic delusions he needed to be cured of.

* * *

 _Several hours later, at Edmonton's airport..._

BC stepped off the plane and into the long tunnel-like gantry, still cradling her head. Saskatchewan had basically laid down in Manny's lap to yank the plugs on both their headsets, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something might have stuck in her mind before he was able to snap them out of it.

God, that would suck ass. Creepy Corvus making her chant shit? That just sent a shudder down her spine. At least it wasn't as bad as being Québec; if he was anything like her, he also had "strong and free" stuck in his head with a three-syllable beat, and at least English was her first language.

BC didn't have any luggage to collect by the turnstile (you know, once they got there), since she'd taken a page out of Alberta's book and brought her luggage as carry-on. The same could not be said of Manitoba, who had a single suitcase that didn't fit in the little bins they had for determining if something was or wasn't carry-on. The lady at the desk was very understanding and managed to have it put in the hold before the plane took off.

BC stepped out of the gantry, her suitcase rolling along behind her- and her eyes went wide.

All airports had a PA system of one kind or another; Edmonton was no exception. But instead of the usual announcements that said a plane was moving gates or whatever, this PA system was just...playing...

 _That fucking white noise._

BC gulped. This was bad. This was very very very VERY BAD.

Manitoba's face mirrored her own as the two of them walked towards the baggage carousel.

The staff in the airport had that...that glazed look in their eyes, and there didn't seem to be anyone waiting for their flights. Just arrivals, no departures.

At all.

They passed by dozens of empty passenger lounges, with the screens that should have been displaying flight information blacked out.

It was almost like nobody wanted to leave Edmonton.

Manitoba shuddered and he looked back to make sure Sasky and Québec were still with them. They were, and neither of them looked very happy about the sudden realization.

By the time they got to the baggage carousel, Manitoba was feeling seriously antsy. He needed to blow off some steam, some how, some way.

The damn thing still hadn't turned on, and so he bounced nervously from foot to foot. BC was afraid to talk on the off-chance that the frequency would cause something horrible to happen if she did, so it was just Manitoba...

And the fucking chant that was _still stuck in his fucking head._

Saskatchewan sidled up beside them, as did Québec- the Frenchman seemed to be humming a little tune to keep his mind off the chant that had been drilled into his brain, and Manitoba's eyes lit up.

Perfect. He immediately started to hum _American Woman_ under his breath, and it did seem to work- until the orange light went on over the turnstile and it started to disgorge the few pieces of luggage that had been in the plane's hold.

Instantly the chant came back, and it was really pissing Manitoba off.

He sighed and started to hum the Red River Jig instead, but that had the unfortunate side effect of making him want to start dancing. That song was his fucking kryptonite, truly.

Saskatchewan pulled Manitoba's bag off the turnstile and handed it over to his elder brother, sighing and snapping his fingers in BC's face a few times- she'd started to mumble the chant again under her breath.

It was fucking insidious shit, that chant.

Québec lead the way, humming something by Celine Dion, (and in Manitoba's presence, humming something of hers was a flogging offence, but he'd let it slide) leading them to the rental desks. None of them had had the foresight to book a car in advance, and all of them were roughly six feet tall. So a tiny little sedan was not going to cut it for four huge provinces and their luggage.

Unfortunately, tiny sedans were all the rental company seemed to have. Saskatchewan and Québec traded a look and sighed.

"I'll take a car, and so will he."

"Right can I please get your registration?"

Both of them produced their respective driver's licenses- and Manitoba got a funny feeling that this was a _hideously_ bad idea.

He took a deep breath to calm himself down, running a hand through his spiky black-brown hair, tapping his fingers on the handle of his suitcase.

...Takin' Care of Business? Yes. Yes, hum that. That would get the chant out of his head, and help calm him down.

 _Ya wake up every mornin' to the alarm clock's warning-_

The sound of marching feet caught Manitoba's attention. Someone, or rather a lot of someones were marching their way.

Saskatchewan took the keys to his hatchback from the lady behind the counter as soon as he'd finished filling out the form. Never in his life had he filled out paperwork quite so frantically. Manitoba wasn't alone, and he could also hear the marching of several dozen people from the end of the airport where they'd just been.

Québec did the same a few seconds later, and without so much as a second glance at the attendant, the four of them booked it for the airport's outer doors.

"MANITOBA, YOU'RE WITH QUEBEC!"

"WHY ME!?"

"BECAUSE YOU SPEAK FRENCH, DUMBASS! QUIT YOUR FUCKING BITCHING AND GET IN HIS CAR!" Saskatchewan thundered, grabbing BC by the arm and dragging her to where their rental was located. There was a button on the key fob to open the trunk, but it took the farmer a few tries to get it open- the big hands that were so hilariously bad at texting couldn't be trusted with this job either.

One way or another he got the trunk open, and he and BC jammed their suitcases into it frantically, slamming the trunk lid down. By the time they were done that, Québec and Manitoba were already tearing ass out of the parking lot-

And that's when the airport doors opened and thirty cops came running out.

Saskatchewan had never gotten into a car faster in his life. He'd never fired it up quicker, and he'd never reversed faster or more haphazardly. The cops had probably been sent to the wrong gate, or maybe they were just parked there to arrest anyone who was deemed a problem?

Saskatchewan didn't give a fuck.

He was in Edmonton and he was driving his car like Alberta would, weaving around the cops and stomping on the gas as soon as they were in the clear.

BC had found a map in the glove box, and was poring over it.

"Okay, you gotta turn onto the AB-2N..."

"The what?!"

She looked up and scowled.

"THAT BIG ROAD WE JUST MISSED THE HUGE FUCKING TURNOFF FOR?!"

"WELL SORRY ABOUT THAT, BUT I WAS A LITTLE BUSY TRYING NOT TO GET SHOT BY THE FUCKING COPS?!"

"GODDAMN IT SASKATCHEWAN-TURN AROUND YOU IDIOT!"

"FINE, WHICH WAY?!"

"LEFT!"

"BUT LEFT DOESN'T SAY AB-"

" _GO LEFT OR BAD THINGS HAPPEN!"_

Saskatchewan snarled and turned right, like the sign was indicating. Sometimes he was glad Alberta was between him and this Starbucks-sipping, pot-smoking hippie freak.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Whee, another one for your reading pleasure._

 _Manitoba is the king of rock and roll, in Canada at least. You do not offend his majesty with second-rate musicians._

 _BC and Saskatchewan probably shouldn't drive together._

 _Anyway, as always, Reviews, follows and favourites are greatly appreciated!_


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

* * *

 _Meanwhile, at Calgary city hall..._

"Well, Commander? What is your assessment?" Calgary's Chief of police folded his arms impassively at the military man next to him who was poring over the map of the city.

"My assessment is that this entire city was laid out by an asshole who never thought it would need to be defended." The commander of CFB Suffield swore, taking off his beret and laying it on the table next to the ashtray where he'd stubbed out his cigar.

Chief Morrison noticed an interesting detail about the commander's camo uniform. On his shoulder was a Velcro patch where a flag was usually stuck on- a maple leaf. But in this case, the patch had been ripped off, and...well, that wasn't the Chief's job to speculate.

His job was to protect the people of the city and maintain order.

"Remind me again what the communication said?"

The commander looked up from the map.

"They plan to come in from the east and they hope to establish order in this city before moving on to take the capital."

The chief of police nodded. "And remind me again how you know this, because quite frankly you haven't said a word."

The commander rose to his feet and grinned like a shark.

"Fuckers still think Suffield flies the maple leaf. They sent me a communication with all the information on their attack plan, and I responded like they had our support. But as for that fucking flag...we took 'er down and burned it, the whole base. And all our shoulder patches." He said, pointing at the forlorn piece of Velcro with nothing to stick to.

The Chief nodded. "Right. So what are we up against?"

"Riot cops and soldiers. That fucker Slate's getting the whole country to donate a handful of cops to the effort. They're gonna try tear gas and rubber bullets, and if that doesn't work, the army."

The Chief nodded. "And you're the army?"

"Damn straight. Mostly. I'm not so naive to think they won't be bringing in backup from some of the other bases around their shithole of a country."

The commander spat in the corner of the room and pulled another cigar from the pack on the table, lighting it. Chief Morrison coughed but decided not to say anything; they needed his help if they were to have a prayer of defending Calgary.

Hell, it was the Commander himself who'd personally brought word to city council.

"Right...you think we could get some of that shit they have at Mewata working again?"

Mewata armoury was an old brick building built like a castle on the outskirts of downtown. Out front it had several pieces of old equipment from the world wars installed as decorations.

The Chief snorted. "Not a hope, Commander. That stuff's older than dirt."

"Right." He took another puff of his cigar and thought deeply. "I don't want to get my men on the front lines to deal with the riot cops, because that's just...they're not even fucking armed. We have machine guns, they have rubber bullets, and I don't want to go down in history as a butcher."

Morrison nodded. "I hear that. I've got about 2000 guys on the force at the moment...granted, most of them aren't trained in riot control..."

The commander stopped, taking another drag of his cigar and snapping his fingers.

"Riot. That's it. What about the civilians? We get fifty, a hundred of them with rifles and shit, back them up with army snipers to take out the machine guns...the riot cops don't have a prayer."

The Chief recoiled at the very suggestion. "Commander, are you crazy?! That's just asking for trouble. People are going to get hurt-"

"No, see?" the commander said, pointing at the map, "We spread the word we're looking for troops of any kind, and get most of the populace in the downtown core, in the office buildings and shit...but we need a way to make sure the citizens won't fall back..."

The Chief coughed, partly from the smoke and partly because he wanted to cover the expression on his face.

He'd seen a way, these past few days.

Some people had started to gather in huge crowds in the city parks, and someone would bring a timpani or a big drum of some kind...

And, well, the end result was a throng of completely hate-crazed civilians. It was a good thing it was only happening in small clusters here and there, or his officers would be unable to control it.

"Chief?"

He looked up. "Hm?"

"Do you have any ideas on how to keep the units cohesive? As far as I can see, it's our only option..."

The Chief of police took a deep breath.

"...You know what a timpani is, commander?"

* * *

 _Meanwhile, on the streets of Edmonton..._

Eddy sprinted down the street. He could feel them, could feel their hearts beating- and boy, were they pissed off.

The trap was set, and now he had only to spring it.

The city smirked as they made another confused turn- oh, they were SO lost, and it was so very satisfying. He stopped to catch his breath on a street corner, pulling out a small walkie-talkie and pressing the button to call his accomplices.

 _"_ _Targets have no idea what the fuck they're doing. All units standby."_

And that was it.

The rental sedan came whipping around the corner and started to drive towards him, and Edmonton felt a surge of adrenaline. He immediately stepped out onto the road (far enough to be noticed, but not far enough out to be in danger), waving his arms to get the driver's attention.

He put on his best panicked face as the car screeched to a halt and the window rolled down.

"Edmonton?!"

The man in the passenger seat was, oh, Manitoba? Whatever.

"Yeah, yeah, it's me. Listen, you gotta help me- I managed to get out of the Leg' in one piece, you gotta get me out of here- Corvus had my truck towed-"

He as spluttering and acting flustered, but that was all it was- an act.

Manitoba jerked his thumb at the back. "Quit fucking around and get in the back, dumbass. We ain't got much time...is the city usually this fuckin' empty during midday?"

"No..." Edmonton panted as he leaped into the backseat, slamming the door behind him, "I don't know where everyone is...where are you going?"

Manitoba and Québec shared a look.

"Well, we were going to go to ze legislature, but...we keep getting turned around..." the Frenchman confessed, "Do you know which way to go, Edmonton?"

The city snorted, an honest response. "Are you kidding? I could drive this car drunk and blindfolded during rush hour. That way!" he said, pointing the provinces in the direction of the trap.

* * *

 _A short while earlier at Calgary International Airport..._

Ontario had no weapon on his person, and he felt completely naked and exposed.

The plane had been wheeled into position by one of the little transport trucks that scurried about the tarmac, and now that the gantry was locked into place and the private jet's door was unsealed, it was just a short walk up a long gantry to their doom.

Canada was shaking in fear, and Ontario was just grateful these weren't his people. He didn't want to be able to hear the shit rattling around inside the traitorous captain's brain; he didn't want to know exactly how they all felt.

Ontario stepped onto the gantry hesitantly as the pilot's cabin door unsealed and Captain Price stepped out with a strangely dazed look on his face- which would certainly explain the bumpy landing.

The First Officer was shaking in fear.

"Keith...how could you?" He whispered, "How could you do this to us?"

The captain looked at his FO with an expression of extreme confusion.

"I- Walt, listen...I- It's-" he furrowed his brows, walking over to his FO and planting a firm hand on his shoulder.

"...They're parasites." He said finally, gesturing at Ontario and Canada, "They...they're parasites. Parasites on Alberta's strength. You'd understand if you were in my shoes, Walt. But, uh..."

The captain looked at the floor, then back up.

"...Stay next to me, okay? I don't want anyone getting too...er...trigger-happy. I asked them not to detain you, but you're gonna need to not break any rules..."

He was babbling incoherently, but the words that resonated in his First Officer's mind were "detain" and "trigger happy".

"Anyway!" the captain declared cheerfully, "We've got some people on the end of the walkway who are waiting for us. Would you eastern _fuckers_ please lead the way?"

The sudden _viciousness_ in the normally genial captain's tone caught everyone off-guard. When Walt made for the door, Price planted a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Not you, Walt. You're no parasite. Let them go first."

He jerked his head at the door, and Ontario took a deep breath and stepped out, a trembling Canada following seconds afterwards.

The walk along the gantry was unusually quiet, and Ontario swallowed nervously. As he stepped out into the airport proper, his eyes went wide.

A ring of heavily armed officers surrounded the exit off the ramp, guns locked, loaded and pointed directly at him.

Ontario slowly put his hands behind his head, looking around for some method of escape, some way out-

"That's it, fucker. Nice and easy. Lie down on the floor, Eastie. You're under arrest, and so's your moosefucking compatriot over there."

One of the officers was talking, and another one lowered his gun to toss a pair of handcuffs in Captain Price's direction, the captain and his First officer following Ontario and Canada out of the tunnel closely.

"Hey, Captain! You mind cuffing these bastards for us? Would do, but we've heard the one in the tie can bend steel with his bare hands- I ain't taking my gun off that shit."

The pilot nodded obediently, catching the handcuffs and prodding Ontario in the back to convince him to sink to the floor.

All the while, First Officer Walt was staring at the back of his captain's head, mind racing.

The first officer had in his hands a screwdriver he'd managed to smuggle out of the cockpit.

 _I'm gonna die._ The human thought to himself, _this had better be worth it._

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Short and sweet 'cause I got places to be. Only one chapter today; I'm going to a party._

 _As always, reviews, follows, and favourites are greatly appreciated!_


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen**

* * *

 ** _A/N:_ _I'm actually putting one at the top this time._ _Guys, this chapter contains graphic descriptions of torture. __It_ is _important to the story, and there is_ NO _blood, gore, or mutilation of any kind, but uh, it's...kinda sick. Just giving you a heads-up._**

 ** _Basically: This part is rated M, even if the rest of the story isn't._**

* * *

 _Many years ago..._

" _Mama? What did he take?!"_

 _Little Christopher was on the verge of tears as he looked around their tiny apartment. A thief had broken in and trashed the place, looking for something in specific. The cash his mother kept in a small mason jar on the counter was gone, but the thief hadn't gone through their bedrooms and taken anything else- Christopher's toys were untouched. They didn't own a TV or any electronics, so nothing else of value had been taken._

 _Or at least, that's what Christopher hoped._

 _His mother had gone very, very pale, and she didn't respond to her son for a very long time. She was staring into the cupboard where they kept the mugs and plates- at the empty spot on the bottom shelf where her anti-psychotic medication should have been._

 _She'd just refilled her prescription at significant cost to herself- the medication was one of their biggest monthly expenditures, but she needed the pills to take care of her son. The landlord only let her have the place as cheap as he did because he knew her personally and knew she wasn't going to wreck the place like some of his other tenants had._

 _And now the precious pills were gone, and she wouldn't be able to afford a new bottle for another month._

" _I...Christopher? Call...call the police. Someone...someone took mommy's medication."_

* * *

Corvus's dress shoes clacked across the sumptuous marble floors as he walked behind the legislature's steps and under the grand staircase, into the legislature's empty cafeteria.

His destination was a little side-door that lead down to the side-basement where all the maintenance equipment was, the heat, the light, the water heater; those sorts of things.

Corvus smiled cruelly, placing his hand on the doorknob to the entrance to the legislature's sub-basement. His key was already in the lock, and he only needed to turn the handle. The sight that greeted him was a familiar one- a set of stairs spiralling deep into the earth. He let the door close behind him, humming a little ditty by Gordon Lightfoot on the way down. The man was from the fucking wasteland that was Ontario, but he was a wonderful musician.

Corvus stopped humming as soon as his shoes touched the filthy concrete floor of the basement, eyes fixing on a solid steel door inset into the far wall. Beyond that was a small room that had been walled off from the rest of the basement with concrete and soundproofing foam, and filled with...some rather special things.

Corvus had financed the creation of the room personally; in exchange for still maintaining ownership of his company he actually refused to take the premier's modest salary from the public coffers, instead demanding it be sunk into education and healthcare. He was no parasite.

His investments certainly helped swell his fortune to the point where he could finance the construction of this tiny room in the absolute secrecy it demanded, and what also helped was having a good ninety percent of the seats in the legislature under his command.

Corvus pulled another key off his chain and unlocked the tiny room's door, swinging it open and stepping inside.

He flipped on a lightswitch and smiled coldly at the huddled figure in the large steel cage located in the corner of the room.

"Hello, Mister Calgary." He said calmly, pulling a gun out from the holster he kept concealed under his coat, "I'm sorry I had to leave so suddenly, but I had to take a rather important phone call...you understand, of course. But now you have my full attention, my boy."

* * *

 _The police took photographs of their apartment and promised to keep the case open. They'd do their best to return her pills to her, but there wasn't any guarantee of that, they said._

 _That had been three days ago._

 _Christopher huddled in his room, listening to his mother rant and scream outside._

" _SHUT UP! SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!"_

 _She was so angry, and every time she saw her son she roared at him to go back to his room._

 _Christopher pulled the blankets over his head and started to sob._

 _He just wanted his mommy back._

 _Why was his mommy so angry? Was it his fault?_

 _Christopher racked his brains to try and think of what he might have done to make his mama so mad. He'd put his dishes in the sink and brushed his teeth and gotten to school on time. He'd handed in his homework and didn't spend too long on the swings at recess..._

 _So...it wasn't his fault?_

 _Suddenly his mother slammed his bedroom door open._

" _CHRISTOPHER?!"_

 _That wasn't...that wasn't an angry scream. That was a scared scream._

" _CHRISTOPHER!"_

 _She ripped the covers back and grabbed her son, and that was when the smoke detector went off._

" _M-MAMA!? MAMA, WHAT'S HAPPENING?!" He could smell the smoke, he could smell it- the acrid, horrible smell of burning linoleum and sheetrock, like his mother had lit the kitchen on fire._

 _She pulled him in close for a tight hug, pressing kisses to the top of his head._

" _Shh, Christopher. Shh. There's monsters in the walls. There's monsters and demons and bad bad things in all the walls and they keep screaming in mommy's head. Screaming and screaming and screaming and mommy can't sleep. I'm going to burn them, Christopher. I'm going to burn them all up TILL THERE'S NOTHING LEFT BUT_ _ **ASHES**_ _."_

 _Christopher didn't know how he escaped his mother's arms; only that he did. And he barely had time to get his shoes on and run out the door before a blast of flames followed him out, the fire engines already screaming to the scene._

 _They would be too late to save his mother._

 _The next day, they would find the man who'd stolen his mother's pills, dead on a park bench from an overdose, the empty bottle of antipsychotics in his hand._

 _And one of the officers who had offered to look after the little orphan boy had simply said to him,_

" _The man was a drifter...he'd take his pogey and he'd go buy booze or drugs...nothing but a parasite, really."_

 _And little Christopher simply nodded._

 _A parasite had killed his mother._

* * *

Calgary screamed.

 _Oh god oh god make it stop MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP_

Were those his thoughts? Was he saying that aloud?

He didn't know.

And suddenly, as quickly as it had come, the pain stopped. The burning, crackling sizzling agony stopped.

And Corvus chuckled.

"How are you enjoying my picana, mister Calgary? I travelled halfway around the world to purchase it for my collection. Invented and perfected in Argentina during the reign of their dictator; it's truly a marvel of engineering, isn't it?"

Calgary panted. Oh God, please, please deliver him from this hell...

He strained against the steel cuffs biting into his wrists, praying that maybe he could pop the shackles and get himself off the steel frame that Corvus had propped up against the basement's stone wall. It was in a disused and dusty corner of the building, where nobody went; a sealed room with only two keys to get in and out. It was the perfect place to set up the frame that had been welded specifically to contain the strength of a personification, and more importantly, the set of speakers that filled the room and Calgary's head with that fucking droning white noise.

If that wasn't enough, the premier had forced him to strip off completely and gunpoint and shackled him to this horrible thing. He was naked and humiliated, completely helpless to save himself.

The city glanced down at Corvus's... picana. It looked like someone had plugged a two-prong cattle prod into a generator; but there was a selection of dials and knobs that Corvus was fiddling with at that moment.

"...It's quite a marvel, isn't it? It delivers thousands of volts of power into your body with a hundredth of an amp of current...there's no chance of me stopping your heart or something else silly like that. Then again, there's no chance of me stopping your heart anyway, is there Calgary?"

He shuddered. Under the dim light of the flickering bulb overhead, he could see Corvus bringing the fucking twin steel prongs in towards his pale chest-

" _Say it, boy. Say it. Admit it._ _ **Take the words into your mind."**_ Corvus hissed as he pressed the picana's twin prongs into Cal's sternum and delivering fourteen hundred volts right into his body.

At the point of contact, it felt like his skin was on fire- and he could feel all his muscles burning, convulsing involuntarily under the tremendous voltage.

And it was all Calgary could do to scream.

Corvus pulled the picana away and tapped him on the chest with his finger.

" _ **Say it."**_

"I- I'm- I'm a... _I'm a_ _ **parasite**_ _."_

The words were little more than a whisper when they left Calgary's lips, but they made Corvus grin hideously, showing all his teeth.

"Do you want to be a parasite, Mister Calgary? Do you?"

The city shuddered. There was that...fucking static white noise filling his head, drowning out the cacophony of rage and retorts that were rattling around inside his brain. He'd settle on one, only for the white noise to tear it out of his grasp before he could say it.

And he shuddered again, saying the only word he could think to say.

" _ **No."**_

Corvus smiled.

"Then why don't you join your people in their mantra, boy? They don't seem to mind chanting it...unless you'd rather I..."

He started to move the picana farther down Cal's naked body, prodding at his inner thigh and causing him to scream. He hovered the prod threateningly over Calgary's genitals, smiling at him sweetly. Like a scorpion's tail, poised and ready to strike.

"It's supposed to be used down there, you know. I've been quite...soft on you." Corvus purred, "It's for use on areas with high concentrations of nerve endings...the same principle by which the "Tucker Telephone" operated."

Calgary shook his head in absolute terror, thrashing his disagreement as much as he could. No. No, no, no no-

"Please- please, God, _please no no no please don't please please_ _ **please PLEASE**_ _-"_

Tears, tears that had been building up and threatening to spill over for hours on end finally broke through the dam, spilling down his face as he desperately pleaded with his tormentor not to cross that final, terrible line.

Corvus reached out a hand and cupped the city's chin, brushing away a tear with his thumb.

"I'm not in control, my dear Calgary," he said kindly, "You don't have to suffer that agony if you don't want...all you have to do is listen to me. And all the pain can stop. You are in pain because your head is full of lies, my boy. _I can help you, if only you let me."_

Calgary shuddered. The twin prongs were less than an inch away.

If the man's hand so much as twitched- if he lost his grip-

" _Your mind is full of lies."_ Corvus said calmly, "Say it, boy. I'm trying to **help you**."

Calgary's eyes were glued to the picana. He couldn't look away. It WAS GETTING CLOSER NO NO NO-

"MY MIND IS FULL OF LIES! LIES, LIES EVERYTHING'S LIES **YOU'RE RIGHT I'M WRONG PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE** _ **DON'T PLEASE-"**_

He gasped for air as Corvus pulled the picana away- about two inches.

He still cupped Calgary's chin in his hand, and gently stroked the man's cheek with his thumb as he purred:

" _Your beliefs are_ _ **lies**_ _. You're Canada's_ _ **slave.**_ _Don't you want to be_ _ **free**_ _, Calgary?"_

" _ **Yes."**_ The city croaked, eyes still locked on the picana.

"Yes?" Corvus chuckled, "Yes _what?_ What is it you **want,** my boy?"

The picana was getting CLOSER-

" _ **I WANT TO BE FREE!"**_

* * *

...


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Twenty**

* * *

 _Meanwhile, outside the legislature..._

"THERE! SEE!? THAT'S THE FUCKING LEGISLATURE! SEE THE BIG BUILDING MADE OF FUCKING SANDSTONE WITH A FUCKING DOME ON IT!? SEE?! I WAS RIGHT!"

Saskatchewan's already growly, husky voice had only gotten huskier over the last half-hour of screaming at BC. The dumb bitch couldn't read a map to save her life, he'd concluded, and her excuse of "It's impossible to navigate when we're in the prairies" fell flatter than ever, seeing as they were in a fucking city and the "flat land" excuse didn't work in the city.

Finally, after an eternity of driving in circles and shouting at each other, Saskatchewan pulled into a parking space for visitors and pulled the keys from the ignition, quietly fuming.

They both sat there in sullen silence for a good long while, neither one willing to start the conversation that would lead to them actually getting out of the rental and doing what they came here to do- snap Alberta out of her daze, or something.

Shred the contract, maybe?

Saskatchewan was fully expecting the silence to drag on for an eternity and a half, but to his shock it was BC who finally said something.

"Hey...look. Those cops...what're they doing with those two guys?"

Saskatchewan looked and raised an eyebrow. A small platoon of cops was being lead by a guy in an Oilers jersey...and they had a pair of men with them, each with a bag over their heads. They were a long ways off, but Saskatchewan got a rather unpleasant feeling he knew both the men personally.

"...I don't know, but we might want to get going." He said quietly, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening the door.

* * *

Alberta paced the halls impatiently, grinding her teeth in frustration. This was fucking maddening. She could feel them running around just out of her reach, and the raging desire to stomp them all under her heel like the insects they were hadn't abated in the slightest. Ontario and Canada, or more specifically That Fucker and Dear Leader were somewhere in the north-west end of Calgary and moving...somewhere or other at a good clip. She couldn't tell and she didn't care where they were going; just that they were _there._

She wanted to call the mayor, the chief of police, SOMEONE, and let them know that they needed to be on the lookout for those two, but since she couldn't offer a more precise guess than "somewhere in the north end" it would simply be a waste of everyone's time. Now if Cal were here, she could ask him where they were and where they were going, but he wasn't and it was frustrating.

The one piece of good news in the shitstorm that her life had become in these last few days was the voices. They seemed to quiet down when she was here in the legislature, for whatever reason; enough for her to think and mutter to herself without it being a dialogue.

Alberta closed her eyes. Saskatchewan and BC were on the move, and...

Yup, there they were.

She leaned over the second-floor railing, feeling rather smug as Edmonton and several heavily-armed police officers prodded Manitoba and Québec through the twin pairs of doors and into the main rotunda. That was much, MUCH better. Now they had a bargaining chip; two bargaining chips, as it happened.

"Eddy!" she called cheerfully, "You mind takin' those two down to wherever Corvus is right now? He mentioned having some kind of holding cell...?"

Edmonton visibly reacted to her simple request, the cockiness in his stride immediately freezing. He stopped in his tracks and craned his head to look up at her, eyes looking even wider behind his glasses.

"I- down, uh, Down...there?" Edmonton said weakly, forcing on the least honest smile Alberta had ever seen. "But, um, Cal's, Cal's down there with, um, with M-Mister Corvus, and-"

Alberta groaned. "Look, I'll do it if you're too much of a sissy. But we can't have those two running riot, and that cage he was mentioning is the only thing they can't escape from. So if you _wouldn't mind...?"_

The tone of her voice left Edmonton with zero doubts as to what Alberta's thoughts were on the matter. He was about to ask why she couldn't do it when Saskatchewan and BC suddenly moved.

He felt them moving, felt them standing up, and his eyes went wide.

Québec was muttering something in French to Manitoba, and Edmonton scowled and got on his tiptoes to slap the tallest of all the Canadians.

"Shut it, frog! What did I say about that fucking love-language bullshit? And get moving, we got company and they can't see you here!"

He gestured for the officers to start prodding them along with their gun barrels posthaste, grateful that for whatever reason the other two provinces were taking their sweet fucking time. Wasn't like anyone was gonna stop them...at least until they were in the building itself.

* * *

BC had never been more scared in her entire life.

The area in front of the legislature had a good number of average people milling about, throwing coins into the fountains in their last few days of operation and taking pictures by the legislature. Tourists would be tourists, even when the whole province had gone insane.

For her part, she walked calmly and sedately and tried to ignore her thundering heartbeat as she and Saskatchewan calmly and decisively ambled towards the front entrance. There was some other ways in, but they were all locked and all had guards, guards that eyed them suspiciously and did nothing to help the rising urge she had to flee for her life.

BC was starting to think that Saskatchewan's plan was to walk in the front door and hope for the best. Or in other words, for once in his life, he had no plan.

 _"_ _So, uh..."_ she whispered out of the side of her mouth, _"that plan you mentioned having? Mind letting me know what it is again?"_

Saskatchewan's already rock-hard pokerface seemed to stiffen further, and BC wasn't able to glean even a sliver of emotion from him, which probably meant that the next words to come out of his mouth would be a total lie.

 _"_ _Plan is we confront Alberta and rescue Cal from whatever shit he's gotten himself into. Then hopefully we kick Corvus down a flight of stairs. Sound good?"_

Uh, no. No, that sounded absolutely fucking terrible, as it happened.

BC swallowed her words, clacking up the exterior steps and holding the first mahogany door open for Saskatchewan once they were at the top.

It was what was beyond the second set of doors that had BC trembling in her boots.

Saskatchewan muttered a thanks at her and breezed through, not even bothering to make eye contact with the guards that were glowering at them as they stepped into the legislature proper. Saskatchewan didn't even hesitate; he just pushed the second door open with an uncharacteristic lack of caution, stepping into the main rotunda.

"Sasky!"

Alberta was sitting on the rim of the fountain, looking at them with a big smile, like she was genuinely glad they'd come. She stood up, spreading her arms for her twin in greeting, and BC saw a genuine sparkle of joy in those blue eyes.

Saskatchewan froze.

He was studying her intently, studying her posture and more importantly her clothing for any bump, anything that could give away the presence of a knife, a gun, a weapon.

It had to be a trap.

But she stood there, grinning ear-to-ear like he'd just gotten her exactly what she wanted for her birthday, and BC could see the stoic farmer's resistance breaking down.

BC opened her mouth to say that it had to be a trap, but before she could even get the words out, he'd already taken the few steps to cross the scant few meters of floor between them and was already wrapped up in Alberta's bearhug.

And...nothing. She wasn't palming a knife, she wasn't palming a gun...Nothing.

BC relaxed. A little.

"...Hey, uh, sis?" she asked, deciding to break the ice while the twins had their little moment, "...Er, mind if I ask what that form you made us sign was for?"

Alberta looked over Saskatchewan's shoulder, cowboy hat tilted at an angle to accommodate his head, and winked.

"Ah, that? That's to make sure your bosses agree not to kick up a fuss when we all separate together!"

BC's eyes went wide.

Oh.

Oh, **fuck.**

* * *

 _A/N: Apologies for last chapter being so damn brutal, but it had to be done._

 _Hopefully this one makes up for it somewhat, though it is a bit on the short side._

 _As always, reviews, follows and favourites are greatly appreciated!_

 _I pay my landlord in reviews, guys. Don't be stingy._


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter twenty-one**

* * *

Edmonton shivered.

The basement was cold, and dark, and dusty, but more importantly it was making him...afraid.

He...well, obviously he was thinking the right way now, and it clearly wasn't a gentle sort of adjustment to make to a person's mind, but...well, the premier was just absolutely... _brutal_ in his methods. Moreso than he really needed to be, in Edmonton's opinion.

But...finally he was on the same wavelength as his people, right? It just...took some, uh, adjusting.

And Cal would...probably be better for it.

Right?

Edmonton shuddered as he approached the steel door, making a fist and gingerly knocking, once, twice, a third time.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't-

 _"_ _...Nothing but a parasite, a leech...you're a government town, boy, nothing more. Do you understand me?"_

Edmonton shook his head violently, willing the memory away. No. No, not...not now.

He was **fine.** He was **good.** He had been wrong before but now he was **right,** and there...there was nothing bad about that.

Yes.

He knocked again, and finally the bolt on the other side of the door shrieked open. It wasn't that the metal was old; it was that it was so new that it had been over-tightened when it was placed in the door.

Corvus scowled out at him, and Edmonton froze where he stood.

His mouth fell open and he could feel his heart starting to hammer faster.

Cal hung there in his bindings, the same bindings Edmonton himself had occupied for god only knows how long, with that same slumped, defeated posture. Corvus had had the decency to put the picana down at the very least, but even the cops behind him were unnerved.

"...Premier Corvus?" one of them asked, "What the hell is that guy-"

"Quiet, you. He is hanging there because he needs to hang there for the good of the people. He's a parasite, and a traitor, and-"

And Corvus kept going, but Edmonton wasn't listening. Because, because _Cal._

His brother. His _little_ brother. Flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, and...he just slumped in his cuffs. Like a broken angel that had had its wings torn off. Slumped like Corvus had killed him.

Which...was what Corvus was trying to do, wasn't it?

Edmonton shook, grinding his teeth. No. No, no, no, no...this...was...

 _THIS IS GOOD THIS IS RIGHT THIS IS WHAT MUST HAPPEN WE MUST BE FREE_

But it had hurt so much, so so much, and Premier Corvus had...He had...

Edmonton shuddered, starting to cradle his head with one hand. He dug his nails into his own scalp as he struggled against...something. Something was...wrong.

Something was terribly wrong, not just with Cal, but with...him.

 _ **STRONGANDFREE** this **STRONGANDFREE** is **STRONGANDFREE** wrong **STRONGANDFREE**_

He slapped up against this...wall, this deafening wall in his thoughts that was just the endless recitation of the same three words. So hard to think. So hard to think with the mantra overwhelming his mind, clouding out his thoughts. But Cal was in so much pain, and Edmonton needed to do something to stop-

 **"** **Edmonton."**

Corvus spoke coldly, reprimanding him out of his daze, and looking the slightest bit... ** _worried?_**

That was confusing in and of itself, but the more pressing issue was that Edmonton was suddenly at a loss to say what it was he'd been struggling with. The voices of his people started to chant in his mind, and it drowned out any other thoughts he might have been entertaining about the situation.

Then he looked at Cal again.

"I...Uh, you...We have two prisoners here for, um, well, you've got the only cage, that can, uh..."

At the mention of the word _cage,_ as the word left his lips, Eddy shuddered. The cage where he'd been held. The cold, lonely cage where he himself had been trapped for so many hours like a rabid dog. There was nothing soft to sleep on, only filthy concrete; you didn't rest in that cell, you laid awake until you couldn't any more, and then you passed out for a few hours of fitful, tortured sleep, tormented by the nightmares that Premier Corvus had planted in your mind...

He needed to get Cal out of there.

His brother didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve to be on that rack another _second._

Corvus coughed. "I'm waiting, Edmonton. Are you going to lead them into the cell or not?"

Edmonton suddenly snapped to attention, a steely conviction in his cold blue eyes. Yes, he'd put them in the cage. Oh yes. And then Corvus could break them to his heart's content. They didn't matter.

They were parasites, after all.

But his brother was no parasite. He should never have been put on that frame.

Corvus unlocked the cage and Edmonton held the door open, using his free hand to pull off the hoods over their heads. As soon as they were in the small cage, and Québec had nearly tripped over the rather Spartan latrine, one of the officers swapped his gun out for a pistol and carefully approached.

He first pressed the gun to the base of Manitoba's...

No. No, that name was too dignified. That implied the eastern scum contributed something to the nation. No, he was a leech, Edmonton decided. The Métis leech. He needed a better name.

...The officer pressed his gun to the base of the Swamp Dweller's skull, carefully unlocking his handcuffs with his free hand and backing away.

"Don't fucking move." He hissed, carefully lining up with Québec- No, that was also wrong. The _Frog's_ skull was next, and Edmonton was rather impressed; the two of them were being remarkably well-behaved and co-operative for a couple of fucking parasites.

Manitoba just glared at him hatefully, and Edmonton just winked and did a little 'slitting his throat with his forefinger' type gesture, hoping Manitoba got his message.

The frog's shackles came off, and the officer backed slowly out of the cell, one of the other officers closing it up behind him. The cage locked itself automatically once the door was pressed closed- a useful feature for a premier that was often too busy to relock it and didn't trust others with so much as his spare keys.

Both of them glared hatefully out at Edmonton, and then at Corvus- they couldn't really decide which was more deserving of hate. That was fine with Edmonton; what did he care for the opinions of parasitic worms like them?

Corvus seemed eager for everyone but his new prisoners to leave so he could resume torturing Calgary, and it really was torture, Edmonton decided. It wasn't going to help his brother at all. He needed to get Cal off that rack, pronto.

As he walked out of Corvus's room, Edmonton remembered something Alberta had muttered not an hour previously.

 _"_ _We're marching straight to hell in time with the drums of war."_

The capital broke into a sprint then, shooting past the retreating officers and taking the steps two at a time.

He needed to talk to Alberta.

* * *

 _Several hours earlier..._

First Officer Walt closed his eyes and spun the screwdriver so he was grasping the metal part, raising it up quickly and striking the nearest police officer.

"LEAVE THEM ALONE!"

This ended rather predictably- with the officer he'd attempting to strike smacking him to the ground and cuffing him right then and there on the airport's carpet.

Walt looked up at his captain, his friend, his pilot. Price was just staring down at him with wide eyes, like he was...struggling against something.

Price twitched.

This...they...The other two were parasites, the other two were animals that needed to be slaughtered, but Walt...

Walt wasn't.

Walt was his...his friend.

The officer put his gun down for a fraction of a second, because the man he was attempting to detain was squirming around and he couldn't get his other hand in the cuff-

Ontario looked up from where he lay on the floor, and out of the corner of his eye, he watched in shock as their turncoat captain dove for the gun, smacking the officer off his co-pilot with it and immediately holding it up, frantically training it on random cops in turn- first one, then another, then another. He clearly didn't know what he was doing, but it was a loaded gun and it was pointed at them- and that changed everything.

Instantly every gun that had been trained on him, or Canada, or Walt was trained on Captain Price. And Ontario wasn't the only one to notice.

It was Canada who elbowed him, having glanced up and noticed the sudden lack of weapons.

 _"_ _We need to run while they're distracted."_

Ontario was about to reply, but one of the officers cut him off.

"Captain Price? Put the gun down, nice and slow, and lay down on the ground. You're under arrest." One of the officers said slowly and calmly, and Price shook his head.

"I- I- No." He sounded so shaky, so unsure, and there was some kind of struggle going on in that man's mind, Ontario realized. He craned his neck back to look at the captain- and the captain glanced down at him for a fraction of a second.

Their eyes met, and Ontario flinched.

The sheer _hatred_ in the pilot's eyes was staggering, and if it was just the province, the pilot, and the gun alone in the airport lounge, Ontario had no doubt that the once-genial pilot wouldn't hesitate to unload the clip into his face.

So it wasn't Ontario and Canada that made the Captain do that. It was Walt.

"You- you said you wouldn't detain him." That wasn't a nervous stammer, though it sounded like it. It was a _doubtful_ stammer.

"We made no such promise. Put the gun down, Captain Price."

"I'D SOONER HAVE CRASHED MY FUCKING PLANE THAN TURNED WALT OVER TO YOU!"

The captain roared in a rage Ontario had rarely seen in humans outside of wartime, and it seemed like the captain had finally made up his mind.

The first shot rang out, and clipped one of the officers- and that was when things got serious.

"RUN, WALT!" Price screamed, "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"

And his co-pilot obeyed as the officers that had been trying to pin him down suddenly found themselves taking cover as Price fired at them haphazardly. The co-pilot jumped to his feet and ran flat-out through the airport, and not two seconds later Canada was doing the same.

"MOVE IT, ONTARIO!"

The province got to his feet faster than he'd ever done before in his life and sprinted as best he could in his dress shoes across the tile floors of Calgary's airport.

"STOP THEM!"

And fuck, it was like someone had set the Pied Piper's flute to the murderer setting, or perhaps just the "Calgarian" one; as far as Ontario was concerned they were basically the same thing. All the airport's staff (for there were no passengers waiting to depart) suddenly dropped what they were doing to give chase, and Ontario silently gave thanks to the shoe repairman that had put proper soles on his dress shoes for walking on ice and, in this case, tile.

Walt was a good ten strides ahead of the entire crowd, which was frankly understandable-unlike Ontario and Canada, he only had one life and one body and no chance to escape via rebirth if he got shot here. So it was rather understandable when he started to swear not five seconds later, as Ontario and Canada followed him out the sliding glass doors that lead outside, because short of a pickup truck that was idling about thirty yards away...

Well, the normally-bustling departures area was anything but.

Ontario played video games occasionally, and one of the ones he'd sunk a lot of time into of late was that one game where you're a terrible person who shoots cops and whores and steals cars by ripping the driver out the door and onto the road. And in his absolute terrified desperation, where Canada and Walt stalled, Ontario kept running, his tie flapping in the breeze. Because the one thing he could think to do while staring death in the face was jack that fucking truck.

The flight attendant who the truck was waiting for stepped out of the double doors the second Ontario was striding past the truck's tailgate, and he yanked the driver's side doorhandle not a second later. (So what if he'd been running on the road? Nobody else was driving there anyway!) The driver was understandably shocked to be suddenly face-to-face with a brown-eyed, blond-haired car thief in a classy grey dress suit and tie, but his shock turned to fear, confusion and outrage not two seconds later as Ontario lunged at him. The man had conveniently undone his own seatbelt, perhaps to help the startled flight attendant get her bag in the truck bed, and Ontario simply grabbed him and pitched him onto the road, leaping up and slamming the door shut behind him.

So perhaps video games did inspire the odd act of real-world violence.

Walt and Canada were not two seconds behind him, and after a heart-stopping pause where a bullet whistled by Ontario's open window, the human found himself sitting shotgun and Canada found himself in the backseat. Both slammed the doors shut, though not before another shot smashed up the inside of Canada's door, and Ontario stomped on the gas even as Walt howled "DRIVE, _DRIVE,_ _ **DRIVE!"**_

The truck took off like a bullet from a gun, and Walt and Canada frantically scrambled to get their seatbelts on. Ontario kept one hand on the wheel as he reached over and did up his own seatbelt single-handedly- not an easy task when you're going 200 kph down a concrete chute straight at some toll booths.

The belt snapped in place just as Ontario plowed the truck through the toll booth's boom arm, and it snapped off like a dry twig. Hopefully that wouldn't dent up the radiator grille too much...

Canada craned his neck to look out the back. "Where the hell do we go?"

"What the fuck are they gonna do with Price!?" Walt was shaking like a leaf, ignoring Canada's question, "What the hell are they gonna do to him?! I can't let them kill him!"

Ontario was just trying to focus on the road, shaking with adrenaline as he tried to figure out the best way to get around the city. That Deerfoot Trail looked to be just the thing the doctor ordered, or so he hoped.

He managed to merge onto it and kill the truck's speed down to the posted limit, heart still hammering. They had no direction, but they were out, and with a full tank of gas to boot.

"Walt?" that was Canada talking, "would you check the console for a map? Maybe the glove box? We can't just go driving in circles for hours...Where can we hide?"

Walt shook his head. "I-Keith's house?! He's got a wife- Couple of kids-?" He frantically tore open the glove box, finding nothing but the truck's manual, some registration papers, an old pen, and a faded Roll Up The Rim stub.

Walt plucked the stub out and smiled half-heartedly.

"No map, but at least I won a doughnut."

* * *

 _A/N_

 _So here's the thing: the statcounter or traffic graph or story stats or whatever you wanna call it has suddenly stopped counting views. I checked and this is an issue with the site itself. Apparently neither chapter 19 OR chapter 20 have received a single view, which I know is bullshit._

 _So what does that mean?_

 _That means the **ONLY** way I know anyone's reading this is reviews, follows, and favourites. Seriously guys. Leave a review. I know it's back to school and all, but I'm busting my ass to crank this thing out, and the feedback encourages me to write faster. _

_Also, I am from Calgary. Fun fact o' the day._


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

* * *

 _Meanwhile, at Calgary city hall..._

"So what do the chopper pilots say?"

The commander lit up another cigar, looking over the map and pushing a few pennies around on it- each one was supposed to represent one of his squads, and he was being rather conservative in his estimates for his side. Nickels were placed for the enemy, and for them he was rather liberal in his estimates.

The end result was a lot more nickels than pennies on the map.

Chief Morrison nodded and hung up. The Police department had a small fleet of helicopters at its disposal, though they strictly had a support role without weapons attached. They were used for pursuing suspects in stolen vehicles, patrolling for speeders going over any sane or logical speed (otherwise they'd be ticketing everyone) and many other things besides. And the fleet of choppers had been repurposed in the last few hours to keep an eye on the incoming invasion.

"We got a conga line of armoured trucks that just rolled through Lethbridge en route to Calgary. They'll be here in a few hours, tops. It's like a neverending stream of the fuckers, though apparently the locals have been taking potshots out their windows and blowing their tires out- lotta trucks in the ditch, from the sound of it."

The commander nodded and removed a few of his nickels.

"Any word on Slate?"

The chief looked somewhat taken aback. "Wh-The prime minister? What's he got to do with anything?"

The commander puffed at his cigar and tapped some ashes into the provided tray, thinking deeply.

"How do I put this...You know how Slate's ex-military?"

The chief nodded hesitantly.

"Well, Slate was the kind of recruit I hate. The kind that usually comes home in a box, you know? A glory-seeking dumbass who'd risk his entire squadron for a little bit of bravado and accolades. And before you ask how that never leaked to the media, one, he got assigned a drill sergeant, and two; he was the only candidate in the whole damn election that promised to increase military spending. So all the generals and commanders that knew what a fuck he was kept their mouths shut."

Cheif Morrison coughed. "And you bring this up because...?"

The soldier smirked. "I'd be willing to bet my balls that our Dear Leader is in one of those trucks himself, personally coming to save the day. He couldn't resist. Here's his chance to come in, break some skulls, and come out a champ- he's got the training and the backing of all the mongrels out east, after all. Wouldn't you?"

The chief of police rolled his eyes. "No, because I get paid to enforce peace, not create chaos."

The commander decided to ignore that little remark, because as much as it irked him, the fact remained that he needed the police's authority if they were going to pull this off.

"Anyway...I think I've got a plan for dealing with Slate, but I'm gonna have to ring up the premier to do it. Didn't he do something with that city of yours?"

Chief Morrison bristled. "That's strictly classified information. The city is right where it always has been-"

"I mean that asshole in a white hat who made a pass at my second-in-command awhile ago during Stampede."

The chief sighed. "...Yeah, he got taken up to Edmonton. He was apparently conspiring against the province, or something."

"That's stupid."

"I know, but what are you gonna do?"

The commander shrugged. "Not much. Regardless...how are your people doing getting everyone mobilized?"

The chief perked up. That was something that didn't confuse him at all.

"We've cleaned out every basement, high school and performance hall in the city and have seized a lot of kettle drums, more than enough for what we're planning. The people are also voluntarily mobilizing themselves and have been turning up downtown with eye protection, respiratory protection, and a weapon of some kind, as you requested."

The commander nodded. "Perfect. You've been splitting them...?"

"Yeah. Hockey sticks, baseball bats, chainsaws, whatever get split into one group, firearms get split into another. We've also declared a temporary exemption on all restricted or illegal firearms- provided they're not using them on their fellow Albertans, they've got the right to open carry."

The commander nodded. "Perfect. You think we'll be ready by tomorrow afternoon?"

The chief of police nodded. "Yeah, I hope so. We've been broadcasting all across local media, so hopefully everyone will have got the message. A lot of folks have been using the train and stuff...we've basically got a cot city set up in all the office buildings."

The commander nodded finally, confirming all that he'd heard. "Right, excellent. Now, here's the plan for dealing with the Prime Minister..."

* * *

 _Meanwhile up in Edmonton..._

Alberta let go of her horrified brother, expression changing from joy to confusion and furious frustration.

"Why don't you two understand?!" she snapped, "Why do you look so- Fuck, don't you understand how much better everything's going to be once we've left them all behind? They're just- just fucking dragging us down! They're leeches, parasites!"

"...You keep saying that word." Saskatchewan said quietly. "...Why do you keep calling the rest of the country parasites?"

Alberta's face changed from a moderate scowl to a hateful snarl so fast Saskatchewan didn't even have time to blink.

 _"_ _Because they're draining me dry."_ She hissed, _"It's been ten years of making these fucking unreasonable payments, brother. Ten fucking years. I couldn't afford them a decade ago and I still can't afford them now. We're going to die someday if this shit doesn't stop. But we can't kill the leech that's stuck to us, brother. No, it's a leech that will never die. All we can do is cut ourselves away from it and run from it."_

The farmer took a step back, eyes wide. "You- you're-"

She grinned suddenly, and it was not a nice smile. It was too wide, showing too many teeth; and those blue eyes were leering at him, staring straight into his soul. She was like a broken puppet with too many strings, too many different operators pulling her thoughts every which way. The voices seemed to have come back, and seemed to be talking in her mind again.

"I'm...what? Go on, Sasky. Insane? Crazy? Going to hell for this? Go on, what were you gonna say?"

Saskatchewan swallowed dryly and shook his head, backing up another step. It was BC who instead took the step up where he'd fallen back, snarling at her deranged sister.

"Yeah, you know what? You ARE insane, Alberta. You HAVE gone fucking loopy. And that's saying something. I'm not coming with you, and neither is Sasky. You're landlocked and you're not getting access to my ocean!"

Alberta giggled.

She fucking _giggled._

It was not a nice sound. She was a tall, powerful woman, and that little sound of mirth was so warped and twisted and removed from her stature and personality that it made BC's skin crawl in revulsion.

Saskatchewan's look of shock just melted into pure, unadulterated terror.

"Oh, I wouldn't be so quick to say shit like that, _big sis."_

BC snarled. "Don't...don't fucking call me that. You- you aren't my little sister. You're not the Alberta I know."

The blonde rolled her eyes. "God, not this again...Didn't I already go through this? Fuck, BC, it IS me. I AM Alberta. And maybe I'm not better like this. Maybe I am worse. But you know what? Once we three are out of this fucking federation, I fucking _will be."_

BC shook her head again, this time balling her hands into fists. "No. No, no, a thousand times no! I ain't coming with you, and your fucking crazy premier!"

"You signed the form, big sis." Alberta said sweetly, "And so did Sasky. You put your name on the line, and gave your assent to a binding contract. You know how the rules work, big sis. Like it or not, when I leave, you're coming with me."

"UH, BC- WE GOT A SLIGHT ISSUE-" Saskatchewan suddenly spluttered, and the raven-haired province spun, eyes going wide.

The security guards that had been giving them the stink-eye on the way in were standing in front of the exit, two large guns between two large men, neither of whom looked rather happy at Saskatchewan's escape attempt.

Alberta looked almost remorseful for a moment, before shifting back into her usual insufferably cocky candor.

"Well, I guess we should take them down to the basement, if they're gonna be like THAT. I'm sure Premier Corvus will get you all straightened out, and then we'll all be on the same page, eh?"

Saskatchewan shook his head in despair. His sister had lost her fucking mind.

Alberta lead the way down to the basement, staying unusually quiet as she did so. The two guards kept their gun barrels more or less glued to the backs of the two provinces they were escorting, and all seemed hopeless until-

The basement door swung open and Edmonton came flying out, ploughing straight into his province in an awkward, flailing tackle that set both of them careening into the tile. BC tensed up as if she was going to use the distraction to bolt, but the guard simply planted a hand on her shoulder and pressed the gun to the base of her skull instead of the small of her back.

"Alberta- Al- Listen, Cal- they, they need Cal-"

Edmonton was red in the face, spluttering and confused; there was a hollow look in his eyes like he'd just seen a ghost.

Alberta groaned and shoved the city off of her like he weighed nothing- which, to her, he probably did. Her hat had fallen off her head when they'd hit the floor, and she turned around to pick it up and jam it back on before bothering to address her capital city.

"What the hell, Eddy?!"

"Cal!" He spluttered, half-shouting his brother's nickname, "Cal- They need him, back down south! And um, Uh, they need him! You- you need to talk to C- To Premier Corvus, you need to, Because Cal's, um-"

Alberta raised an eyebrow.

"...You really didn't think that one through at all, did you?"

Edmonton let his head hang.

Alberta sighed and stood up, offering Edmonton a hand to help him to his feet.

"Look, Eddy, what Corvus is doing to Cal is...whatever it is, it's got to be important. He won't even let me in to have a look. But, well, it fixed you up, right?"

"NO!" his sudden outburst seemed to shock everyone, especially Alberta. "No- no, I'm- I- Cal-"

Alberta sighed. "Look, I don't have time for this. We'll talk in a bit, okay Eddy? C'mon, boys. Let's get these two on ice, yeah?"

And with that, she muscled past the city, leading the cops into the dark depths of the basement.

Edmonton bit his lip. Fuck. What was he gonna do now?

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Traffic graph is still down, guys. You want faster updates, you know the drill. Follows, favourites and especially, especially reviews are really appreciated._

 _Also, I promise Calgary's cops aren't this dumb or corrupt IRL. They're cool and they wear cowboy hats to Stampede._

 _Let's all cross our fingers and pray we never get a PM like Slate, yeah?_


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in Moncton..._

Nova Scotia blew some smoke into PEI's face, giggling softly to himself as he slumped back on his sister's couch. The kilted province kept a stash of weed in Brunsie's safe, in the event that he was stranded there for one reason or another. That had happened in the past, mostly due to snowstorms, and it was always best to be prepared for any eventuality.

Including a spontaneous kitchen party.

"Fuckin'...like, couch party or some shit, right lil' buddy?" He asked, pulling a more-than-a-little-drunk PEI in close and keeping an arm around his shoulder. The smallest province grunted and squirmed, trying to push the big oaf off- Nova Scotia knew full well that he reacted badly to weed.

"Leave da b'y alone, Scottie. Jaysus fuck, you know he don' like dat shite...I'll have a toke meself, though."

Newfoundland was coming back in from the kitchen with a fresh case of beer and more chips, both very welcome things in Nova Scotia's world about then. He let PEI go, the tiny potato farmer staggering over to Brunswick's armchair with his third beer in his hand. For a guy his size, he was no lightweight, all things considered.

New Brunswick wandered in with a pie she'd found in the freezer and heated up, putting it on the table to sit next to the chips and flopping down next to Nova Scotia. Her curly red hair (granted, they were all varying degrees of ginger) had gotten even more sheep-like since stepping off the plane, and it was all she could do to hold it under her bandana.

The joint made its way from Newfoundland to New Brunswick and back to Nova Scotia, and soon Atlantic Canada was what is medically known as "Bombed out of their fucking skulls."

PEI cracked open his fifth beer and squinted at the TV, trying to make the two news anchors merge into one, or at least stop wobbling around so much. Reading the headline was even more of an issue, and he soon gave up to pack another bottle back.

Newfoundland chuckled, taking another drag of the joint and passing it off to New Brunswick.

"Fuck, B'y's, like...there's...Alberta's fuckin'..."

The fisherman waved his hand around a bunch to emphasize his point, and was met with a round of understanding nods- the CBC anchor lady was talking about the situation in Alberta, and had a very serious expression on her face.

" _...However, the situation in Calgary is far direr. All of our correspondents sent us footage, but it was heavily doctored, and, in the name of journalistic integrity, we can't in good conscience broadcast most of it. What footage we have been able to glean has been posted online."_

"Your MOM'S been fuckin' posted online!" Nova Scotia called, taking another sip of his beer.

The camera cut to cellphone footage of a huge mob of people stepping off the train at a station in downtown Calgary, all of them armed to the teeth with whatever they had at hand. Most carries backpacks with blankets and sleeping bags, or at least a few tins of food- and there were a distressing number of guns. It was grainy and blurry and lasted only a few seconds before cutting to a male reporter standing in the middle of a city.

 _"_ _I'm here in Lloydminister on the Saskatchewan half of the border, and it's about the only place where journalists can get a good look at what's been going on in Alberta safely."_

"Sasky'sh...like...fuckin', he's a great guy, you know?" PEI slurred, "He like, He..uh...He...farmsh an' shit..."

"Ouais, Je, uh, je like 'im too." New Brunswick agreed, blowing out some smoke and handing it off to Newfoundland for his drag.

 _"_ _We've received reports that the Prime Minister himself is personally accompanying the mission to retake Calgary, and further sources say that a lot of this chaos has been orchestrated by Premier Corvus and the Alberta Reformation Party. Neither the Premier nor any party representatives could be reached for a comment."_

"'S'cause they were all SUCKIN' DICKS!" New Brunswick shouted, laughing at her own joke and taking a long swig of Alexander Keith's. "Merde, so glad we aren't helpin' them..."

There was another round of nods, and as the news continued to speculate on the situation in the oil and gas province, the Maritimes stopped paying attention.

Mostly because PEI had reached the point where he'd forgotten which hand was his left one.

* * *

 _Meanwhile..._

The OPP had offered Ontario a class in defensive driving many years prior, in the interests of ensuring the safety of their personification. And as Ontario drove down the highway, he found himself silently cursing his own stupidity for not taking the damn class when he had the chance.

Every car on the road seemed to be actively trying to attack him, and it was a wonder he hadn't driven into the ditch.

No police cars though, which was the only piece of good news.

"...Ontario, you're going too slow." Canada said gently, "They're angry because you're holding up traffic..."

The nation's voice was tinged with relief, relief at the fact that they were angry at something besides him for a change. He hadn't been able to 'zoom out' his sixth sense, as it were; for one reason or another it was glued on Calgary and refused to budge off the Stampede city. Possibly due to his own animal instincts screaming at him to get the fuck out of there, the same principle that glues your eyes to the train speeding towards you when you're tied to the tracks.

Ontario balked.

"I'm doing exactly 100! We're in the city limits! How much faster do they want me to go?!"

"...Try 110 or 120."

Ontario sighed. "We're going to get arrested..."

He pressed the accelerator down just that extra bit further, and the tan pickup shot forwards, at a much more 'normal" speed.

Canada sighed. "Thank god...Ontario, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to conform if we want to get out of here alive."

"Conform? Like a bunch of fucking cattle?" Walt echoed, grinding his teeth. "By the way, Price's turnoff is up here on the left..."

"Here?"

"Yeah, there."

Canada looked out the window, closing his eyes and trying to focus on someplace other than Calgary. Unfortunately, the only place he managed to shift it was Lethbridge, which didn't help at all- they were even angrier, if that was even possible. But that was fairly easily explained by the fact that the army had effectively shut the town down and was using it as an impromptu base of operations.

Jesus, they were _livid._

The people of Lethbridge were angrier than Montréal had been, and Canada shuddered. No. Go back to Calgary, it was less...murder-y.

Ontario turned off into Captain Price's community, and killed his speed as he approached a playground zone, coming to a complete stop at the intersection and idling there.

"Okay, which way?"

"Uh, Right...have you got a phone I could borrow? I need to call Shelly..."

Canada snapped out of his meditation and fumbled in his pocket for his cell, unlocking it (1-8-6-7) before handing it to Walt.

"His wife, right?" Canada asked softly, closing his eyes. Shelly, Shelly...he focused his sixth sense as much as he could on their current location, scanning each house for- oh, Jesus fucking Christ, BAD IDEA.

Everyone was fucking livid, the houses with people in them reading less like comforting candles in the darkness and more like the glint of steel knives that wanted to stab him to death. Canada pulled back a whole lot, not liking the aggressive vibe on them all...but Shelly. He needed to see who this Shelly was, before they got out of the truck.

The phone rang, and Walt nervously drummed his fingers on the console.

"H-Hi, Shelly? Oh, thank god...listen, it's...it's Walt. Yeah, yeah...listen, I...I need a place to lay low for awhile. Can I...? Oh, thank god. Thank _god_. God bless you , Shelly. What's your...? 42, got it. Thanks. See you in a second."

And Walt hung up, letting out a deep sigh of relief.

"Fuck, thank god. She's not crazy. It's on this street...42, that's the number."

Ontario nodded and they slowly crawled by each house in turn, until finally Walt pointed out the one in question. It was a nice little two-story affair, with a big shady Mayday tree out front; there was a single car in the driveway, and Ontario pulled the truck in next to it, putting the truck in park and killing the engine.

And finally the province let out a long, shaky breath he had no idea he'd been holding.

Walt didn't waste a second, undoing his belt- and freezing.

He looked at both Ontario and Canada, and then his eyes went wide.

"...you two. Listen to me. I don't know what Shelly's gonna do about you, got it? So you're human until further notice, do you understand me? Please tell me you have names that are somewhat normal-"

Canada just nodded. "Yeah. I'm Matthew Williams, and Ontario was, uh-"

"...Mackenzie King Williams." Ontario said, turning red in the face. It was the name on his license and it was one he'd had to think up on the spot. And boy, did it show.

Walt sniggered, and then nodded seriously. "Right. Matt, Mackenzie...follow me. You're HUMAN, remember that. Human, human, human. So what I'm saying is, for the love of Christ, don't do that thing where you off-handedly call someone a "human". Because you ARE human, got it?"

They both nodded in agreement.

"Right, let's get the hell out of here. Probably shouldn't have parked it in the driveway..."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _This one's for you, Ktrevo. Ask and thou shalt receive._

 _Which is an excellent reason to review this here fanfic, isn't it?_

 _Stats are still buggered, guys._

 _As always, Reviews, follows, and favourites are greatly appreciated!_


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

* * *

Corvus sneered at the man before him, slapping him across the face. A slap- the sharp, stinging pain acting as a sudden snatch of contrast, of clarity, to the prisoner who he abused. Real pain, tangible pain, pain that didn't burn or make his muscles convulse and grew warm at the site of impact.

 _"_ _Look at you. Pathetically weeping like a child. Why do you continue to defy me, boy? Why? Can't you see I'm trying to help you?"_

And another slap, this time on the opposite side of Calgary's face.

It was all the city could do to sob.

It had been hours of this. Hours. He was never going to be free. He was never going to feel the sunshine on his face again. He was never going to see the blue sky again, or feel the Chinook wind rolling in off the mountains. He hiccupped at that, closing his eyes and trying to will the world away. Thinking of the sun setting over the Rockies, sparkling off the snowcapped peaks...

And another jolt to his sternum shattered the fantasy, sending it floating away in a thousand broken wisps of what had been. And Calgary sucked in another agonized sob, the realization finally dawning.

There was nothing more for him but his cell and his agony. Eddy wasn't going to help him. He was trapped.

The monster in front of him (Corvus had stopped appearing human to him many hours ago) simply continued to snarl, and hiss, and whisper his horrible words. In some ways, the words were worse than the picana or the beatings- cutting away at his heart, at his soul, bit by agonizing bit, leaving nothing but a hollow shell.

And promising to...help.

Help how?

 _"_ _I can help you. I can take the pain away. You aren't in pain because YOU are wrong. You are in pain because your THOUGHTS are wrong. Let me correct your thoughts, boy. Let me fill your mind with the truth, and the pain will all go away."_

Calgary nodded dumbly, not even able to speak. Yes. _Yes,_ _ **yes**_ _._ He wanted that. He wanted that so badly. He wanted the pain to go away. He didn't want to be wrong or think wrong anymore. He wanted the pain to go away.

 _"_ _Good. Listen to the voices of your people, Calgary. Listen to them. What is it that they say? What is it that they want?"_

They wanted...they...they wanted to be free. They wanted to be _free_.

And they chanted. They chanted in his mind, they chanted in time with the white noise clouding his thoughts over. Filling his head, filling his _thoughts..._

 _"_ _You are their personification. You live to serve them. And doesn't it feel so good to let their wishes fill your mind, Calgary? Doesn't it make the pain go away? "_

They were chanting, and it was...comforting. It was...calming. Like a drug he couldn't get enough of, the quiet chanting of hundreds of thousands of voices in unison in his mind gently washed away the agony he was in, carrying it away. He sobbed again, but it was less from agony and more from the inherent rightness of it all. He felt...reborn, almost. The connection with his people had grown shaky at best these last few weeks, but now...now he could hear them all, could FEEL them all; he could feel the singing of those million souls in his blood, and he wanted...he wanted to be with them. He wanted to be with them, to chant with them.

He needed to go home. A need, an instinctual need; he needed to go home in the same way he needed to breathe, for here in this city, there was no oxygen for him.

Calgary strained against his restraints suddenly, thrashing violently, angrily. The sudden spark of resistance seemed to catch Corvus off-guard, and he took a step back, eyes wide.

"What the devil-"

 ** _"_** ** _LET ME GO!"_**

Corvus scowled and jabbed the city with his picana, square in the middle of the chest. That would calm him down, surely. He wasn't finished indoctrinating him just yet-

But it seemed not to work, not at all. The tool that had mere moments ago rendered the naked figure chained to his rack a sobbing mess merely seemed to enrage him, and Corvus took a fearful step back.

Blue eyes leered at the premier coldly, something that deeply unnerved Corvus. They weren't supposed to look like that, not for a good long while...he wasn't even halfway through the indoctrination process yet, and while his previous trials on Edmonton had allowed him to streamline the methods somewhat, this...was something new. Something unexpected.

Edmonton hadn't responded like that at any point in the process. Corvus had simply torn down his old ideology and built him up a new one, a more correct and less...parasitic one. But this...there was something he was missing.

"You fucked up."

Corvus whipped his head to look over to the cage in the corner. All this time the two additional prisoners Edmonton had brought down had stayed quiet, just as Corvus had ensured they would; each time they spoke in protest, he simply increased the voltage and pressed the tip of the picana to Cal's nipple or navel or someplace equally sensitive until they finished talking, smiling at them in a friendly sort of way until they finally got the message- that speaking would only make it worse for their fellow personification.

But now, the one with the black hair...Manitoba, it was...spoke.

He looked horrified at what he'd seen, but there was a look in his eyes of...mockery. Of sarcasm, of smugness, of knowing something Corvus did not.

The premier reached down and flicked the picana up to the highest setting.

"Oh? And pray tell, you fucking arse, how have I fucked up?"

The province raised a single eyebrow at the premier's choice of epithet, but chose not to comment.

"You just forced him to start listening to his people." Manitoba said softly, "you forced him to listen to them; you forced him to do something I'm sure he's been unconsciously avoiding for a good year, if not more, on account of this artificial craziness you've planted in everyone's minds. I'd do the same in his shoes. But now that you HAVE forced him to reconnect with them..."

Manitoba chuckled darkly.

"You've created an urge in his mind to be with his people. He needs to go home, fuckface. He doesn't just want to- he NEEDS to. And he will murder anyone and anything that stands in his way."

And as if by way of a reply, Calgary howled again, rattling the entire frame as he strained against his cuffs; his pupils had narrowed to pinpoints and he was snarling like a caged animal, the look in his eyes one of utter hatred and contempt.

They were chanting, relentlessly, endlessly, drilling the mantra into his mind, drilling it into his very soul; and all he wanted to do was submit, obey their endless command to come home, _come home,_ _ **come home**_...

But the cuffs, the cuffs around his wrists and ankles kept him bound and chained to that frame, and their demands weren't getting any less insistent. Calgary stopped struggling for a brief instant to catch his breath, those million voices chanting and chanting and chanting and he wanted to scream, he wanted to scream and scream until everything went quiet. Because thoughts, thoughts, he didn't have any thoughts; they were drowning in the sea of chanting voices, obliterated by the insistent repetition of the same three words.

And he needed to go home. To go home so the voices would go quiet. To go home to them. It was a craving more intense than any drug withdrawal could hope to be, the desire to return to them. So he threw back his head and howled, straining against his cuffs and rattling the whole frame.

Corvus swallowed, soaking the new information in and looking at the thrashing, enraged city that apparently wanted to murder him. On the plus side, the rack was designed specifically to withstand a personification's strength; he'd asked Alberta herself about what sort of materials one might have to use to restrain Canada himself, and, well, she'd just laughed at him in response. Apparently restraining a nation was on par with containing a nuclear explosion, but she had offered some idle speculations that Corvus pulled into his own designs.

The rack had never been intended for her, anyway. Corvus had decided quite firmly upon that. For a start, there was no need for her to be restrained to it; he was already her boss and she was already obliged to do as he said, so there wasn't a point to breaking her. On top of that, every time Corvus idly speculated as to what it might be like to test his techniques on his province...well. He could never bring himself to do more than idly speculate.

She was...it wasn't right. He couldn't do it to her. He couldn't.

But there was the problem at hand to worry about. He _could_ pull the city off the rack, but then Calgary would quite likely kill him. Corvus had very little interest in dying; dying seemed messy, uncomfortable and painful, and most crushingly it would throw a wrench in his plan to free this province from its chains of servitude.

Salvation decided to appear for him in the form of his phone buzzing in his pocket. His personal phone, that only a select few people knew the number to; One of which was his secretary, in case she needed to patch a call to his office through. It would have to be pretty important for her to do that though, and if he remembered correctly, she was off work that day.

Peculiar.

* * *

 _Meanwhile, upstairs..._

Edmonton smirked and hung up the phone, very pleased with his own handiwork. He'd been brooding up on the second floor, flipping off Ralph Klein's portrait (Fuck that guy and his 'you can see the end of the world from Edmonton" comment, honestly) and just generally sulking at his own inability to save his brother...and then Corvus's phone had started to ring.

For some reason, the man had left his office open, and Edmonton had decided that in the premier's absence and the absence of his secretary, it was his duty to take the call. It could have been something really important, like the premier of Saskatchewan calling to pledge his support, or maybe just someone to swear at.

Instead, the commander of CFB Suffield was on the other end of the phone and looking to speak to Calgary.

Edmonton had nearly fallen over in shock, realizing that the commander could well be his brother's ticket to freedom.

 _"_ _We need him down here now. Him and missy Alberta. The Prime minister's coming to town with his little coalition of fuckers, and we've got a little surprise all planned for the PM. But we need Calgary to make it work."_

And Edmonton had asked, "What's the plan?"

The commander had simply chuckled.

 _"_ _That's classified, Edmonton. Need-to-know basis only. You're not need-to-know. Anyway, where's Calgary?"_

So Edmonton had patched him through to Corvus's phone; a post-it note affixed to the premier's computer monitor told him what buttons to push in order to initiate the patch-over.

With that done, he turned and ran out of the premier's office- there was no telling how long it was going to be until Corvus released his brother, and Eddy needed to be there the minute he got pulled off the rack. Because if how he'd felt coming off that thing was any indication, Cal was going to be more than a little loopy.

* * *

 _Meanwhile..._

"Hello?"

"Premier Corvus!" The jovial voice of some man Corvus didn't recognize rang through his phone, and the premier took a step away from the snarling, screaming Calgary towards the door, then another, then another, until finally he turned the knob and elbowed his way out, sliding out in such a way that the door was open for just the amount it needed to be. He slammed it behind him, and was extremely glad of his careful exit.

Alberta was standing right there, with two of her fellow provinces in handcuffs on either side of her.

Corvus wanted to hiss at her to leave the basement; the last thing he needed was her seeing what he was actually doing to her cities behind the steel door. It wasn't that she was fragile, far from it; but he just...he felt a deep shame at the thought of her discovering it. He didn't want her to know. She couldn't know. It was the one thing he had impressed into Edmonton, and another excellent reason to not let Calgary go until that had been drummed into his head too- _your province cannot know what it is that I have done._

"Hellooooo? Premier, you there?"

"Yes! Yes, for god's sake, I'm here. What do you want? Who the hell are you?"

"Commander Gunnar, of CFB Suffield, premier sir. Calling about that city you're holding on to at the moment? Can I speak with him?"

"Psst- Premier!"

Corvus wanted to yell at both the commander and Alberta to shut the hell up. Both of them were talking in both his ears and it was driving him crazy.

"One minute, commander- _Alberta, for the love of god, I'm on the phone, it can fucking wait-_ Sorry about that. What's this about?"

The commander coughed awkwardly.

"It's about Calgary. The city. That you're keeping wherever you're keeping him. In case you haven't noticed, we're about to get invaded down here, and having the man himself on hand might help with morale a bit. Actually, if you could send Alberta down too, that'd be just great."

Corvus blinked.

"You- You want me to send him down south?! When are they going to attack?!"

"Tomorrow or the day after, to be honest. Assuming the plan works- we send a couple cops down to Lethbridge with some fake documents to pretend to "defect"...whatever. Point is, we need the city and the province or we're gonna get fucked over. The people want their city."

Corvus swallowed dryly. "Is- Is there any way-"

"Not that I can see. Sorry Premier. We'll bring him back up right after we're done with him."

And then the commander hung up. Just like that.

And Corvus felt the blood drain from his veins.

"Hey, Premier! Look, Sorry to bother you, and I know you don't like me down here, but, uh, don't you have a cell you can put these two in for a little bit?" Alberta looked rather hopeful, like she'd been patiently waiting for the door to open- for a long time, if the bored look on both Saskatchewan and BC's faces was anything to go by. Even the guards looked bored of standing there, but to their credit they never let their guns waver.

Corvus swallowed nervously, head whipping around to look at Edmonton as he came down the stairs. Why him? Why?!

"I, er, yes. Certainly, Alberta. Would you please go and stand at the top of the stairs?"

Alberta opened her mouth to protest, as was always the case when she thought someone was doing something wrong, and Corvus hastily cut her off, adding:

"Edmonton's got a gun of his own, don't you? We'll be just fine getting these two into the cell. For now, you're wanted down south in Calgary...so actually, forget the stairs; you should go and prepare."

Alberta still didn't look completely satisfied with that answer, but she did as she was asked without complaining about it any further. Her cowboy boots clacked off the concrete as the blonde province walked away, and as soon as she was walking up the stairs, Corvus finally released the breath he'd been holding.

"...You're really gonna regret this."

Corvus scowled.

It was Saskatchewan who had finally spoken to him, his green eyes filled with nothing but hate for the human who had warped his sister's mind. Even with a gun to his head, the farmer still radiated a quiet defiance that was unlikely to be quelled.

Corvus sighed.

"You're not even worth my time. Edmonton? Guards? Get them in the cage."

Corvus walked up to the steel door, sticking his key in the lock and letting it- and the USB attached to it- dangle from his fingertips as he held it open for the two provinces to be prodded through.

Both of them went from looking furious to looking utterly horrified when they got a look at what lay inside. Cal was even more unhinged than he had been not five minutes prior, practically convulsing in his bonds and spouting utterly insane gibberish.

"Let me go, Corvus. Let me go. I need to go home. **I need to go home. I need to go home. I need to go home** ** _home home_** ** _home HOME_** _-"_

Well, perhaps it wasn't gibberish.

Either way, Corvus smirked as he unlocked the cage and let the guards roughly pitch the two of them inside, slamming the door personally with a satisfied smirk.

"Now, Mister Edmonton...Would you please get your brother's clothes from that little cubby by the cage?"

* * *

Edmonton felt bad holding the gun to his brother's head, but it was the only way they were going to get Cal to actually bother to get dressed and act something approaching sane. Alberta couldn't know, as Corvus had chanted over and over, and apparently his brother hadn't really got the memo.

Still, it was...really, really awkward. Edmonton was basically looking at the opposite wall, because his _brother_ was stark fucking naked right in front of him. God, this had been ten times less awful when he'd been in here getting interrogated; then again, he didn't have an audience besides the premier. And he wasn't nuttier than a sack full of squirrels high on LSD.

And somehow, despite the fact that he'd just been brutally tortured for hours on end, Calgary still didn't know how to shut the fuck up.

 _"_ _Why can't Alberta know?"_ Cal jeered as he did up the buttons of his plaid dress shirt, _"Why can't she know, eh?"_

That was an excellent question, Edmonton thought. An excellent question that probably deserved an answer at some point.

Corvus, for his part, was simply pacing back and forth, twirling his keys nervously. Between Corvus's pacing and the fact that his brother was staring at the premier unblinkingly (when he wasn't looking to put on an item of clothing that is) Edmonton was starting to get rather nervous.

Cal went to do up his belt, and Edmonton looked away for a fraction of an instant-

Edmonton whipped his head around, eyes already wide behind his glasses in shock. His brother had torn the revolver from his fingertips in that instant, without Corvus noticing- and with the guards out of the room, that meant the only gun was in the hands of a raving loon.

Calgary had the decency to finish doing up his belt, time which Edmonton took to back the fuck away from his crazy brother.

Calgary bent over to scoop up his hat, which had lay neglected and unloved in the dirt. He plonked the once-pristine white hat on his head like it was some kind of crown, and then...trained the gun on Corvus.

 _"_ _Gimme your keys, fucker."_

Corvus looked up, eyes going wide.

"What-"

"GIVE ME _YOUR_ _ **FUCKING KEYS**_ **."** The city roared, and everyone jumped at the anger and conviction in his voice. Manitoba merely smirked, covering his face with his hand, lest Calgary get it in his head to go and wipe the smile off his face. The man was obviously unstable, and it was best not to tempt fate.

Calgary cocked the revolver and pointed it straight at Corvus.

The premier took a startled step back, shaking his head. On the one hand, he fully expected this, and on the other-

On the other, he could very well die here.

Death was a slap on the wrist, or so the personifications said; but Corvus was acutely aware of his own fragility and his own mortality, and he wasn't about to go risking his only life on something stupid.

He held out his keys with a trembling hand, watching in horror as the City marched up to him, the bullet in the chamber of the revolver, ready to blow his brains out-

 _"_ _Unlock the cage."_

Wait, what?!

" _Unlock. The. Cage."_

Corvus did as he was told, meekly; his fingers were trembling as he fumbled the thin strip of metal into the complex and expensive lock.

It came undone with a shuddering click, and he swung the door open-

And before he could react, before he could respond, Corvus felt a hand grabbing at the back of his suit and throwing him, throwing him like a goddamn football, into the cage.

 _His keys were still in the lock._

Corvus slammed into a startled BC, the two of them hitting the wall with a painful thump, but that wasn't what made the premier's heart seize.

There was a thunderous CLANG as Calgary swung the cage door closed and pulled the keys out of the lock, a thin smile on his face as he pocketed the premier's keys.

 _"_ _Thanks, Corvus. Have fun in there, and...Make some new friends, eh?"_

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Bleh, not much for notes. It's 12:30 AM, what do you want from me._

 _As always, reviews. Reviews give me life. Seriously, the traffic graph is still buggered and I have no idea if anyone's still reading or not. Fuck this website, honestly-this would be day six of no stats._


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

* * *

 _Meanwhile..._

Shelly was a pleasant enough woman, Ontario had decided. Well, as pleasant as she could be, considering the fact that she kept shooting suspicious looks at him and Canada; but she was happy to shelter Walt, which was enough for Ontario to put his misgivings aside.

Ontario had turned on the radio that sat in a small nook near the kitchen sink, hoping for some music; one of the conditions Shelly had placed upon the three of them in exchange for asylum was doing odd household chores in her place. Considering she was three months pregnant with another child to take care of, Ontario was only too happy to oblige, even if the woman was a tad overbearing.

"Mackenzie!" she hollered from the living room, "Make sure you get those pots good and clean, yeah? Matthew's offered to cook supper for us, and he'll be needing that kitchen soon!"

"Yes Ma'am..." Ontario mumbled, rolling his eyes as he continued to scrub. He was probably a rather ridiculous sight- a man in a prim suit and tie, sleeves rolled up to reveal rather muscular forearms that were currently submerged in hot, soapy water.

Ontario scowled at the radio. Turning the damn thing on had been a big mistake. He HATED these kinds of songs, all obnoxious noise and yelling...

 ** _"_** ** _LET'S START A RIOT!"_** The musician howled, over and over again. Honestly, if that was singing, then the easterner would wrap his tie around some French fries and eat it with cheese curds and gravy.

The song ended, and the announcer came back on the radio, sounding rather...disturbingly excited.

 _"_ _Helloooooo Calgary! That was "Riot" by Three Day's Grace, because we've been getting more requests for it than we know what to do with!"_

Ontario's eyes went wide.

 _"_ _Anyway, we've got a bit of news for whoever's listening...looks like those Eastern Fu- uh, I mean, the, ahem, "Strike team" sent to retake the city's been turned around somewhere near Strathmore and they're heading back to Lethbridge. Meaning we have another day or so to prepare. Once again, this is from the chief of police himself: we need every able-bodied person over the age of 16 to report to the downtown core to help with the counter-offensive. Please bring supplies for an overnight stay, as well as whatever weapons you might have. Further instructions will be given there. Do not, I repeat,_ _ **DO NOT**_ _come if you are pregnant, are an only parent, or are under the age of 16. For the love of god,_ _ **PLEASE do not bring your children**_ _. There's no shame in staying home if you've got kids to look after, people. Your first duty is to them."_

Ontario breathed a sigh of relief. Okay, so they weren't beyond salvation. There was still some morals in this province. They could still be saved.

Wait, strike team?

The DJ wasn't forthcoming with any information pertaining to the strike team, and Ontario couldn't help but grind his teeth in frustration. Instead, he just...

 _"_ _That's about it for the news right now. We're just gonna play some mellow vibes for a bit, yeah? I'm pretty sure you all know the words to this one."_

And then the radio just cut to that same fucking white-noise static.

Ontario gulped and fumbled to switch it off, heart hammering in his chest. That white noise was starting to fill his head again, and he hated it; it seemed to swaddle all his thoughts in cotton balls, slowing his brain down to insultingly useless levels. He hammered the radio's off switch, releasing the breath he didn't know he'd been holding as soon as the kitchen was filled with silence instead of static.

There was something about that fucking white noise, something...malignant. It was like it was...alive. It didn't seem to really control people itself; it just...

It just made them lose their fucking minds.

The province scrubbed at the last pot, listening to Walt playing with Shelly's son in the next room. Unsurprisingly for a pilot's son, he had a lot of toy airplanes to play with; and where Walt failed at making airplane noises (Surprising for a co-pilot), little Jason was more than skilled enough to make up for Walt's deficiency.

It was actually rather cute, and much like himself, the First Officer looked just as ridiculous in his pilot's uniform. Walt didn't have any spare clothes either, since all of their suitcases were still aboard the plane; and none of them were in any hurry to get them back.

Ontario ambled into the living room where Canada was sitting on the couch, cradling his head. The province was simply grateful that he didn't' have to suffer the agony that Canada was currently going through- listening to people raging at him in his mind at all hours of the day or night had to be more than a little unpleasant.

Not helping was the fact that Shelly was sitting on the same couch, idly scrolling through some news on her tablet. Captain Price's wife seemed to be simply tolerating his and Canada's presence as an unpleasant necessity; it was clear from the way she looked at the two personifications that she was only doing this for Walt, and by extension her husband. She glanced up from the news and squinted at Ontario, studying his face, before glancing back down at the feed and continuing to read.

Shelly was a pretty woman, all things considered; brown hair and brown eyes and a nicely-shaped face, even if the growing baby bump looked a bit out of place on her frame. Captain Price's second child. The province smiled weakly at her; he couldn't help the slight pang of jealously in his heart. After all, Ontario would never know what it was like to have a child of his own. A personification's immortality was a blessing wrapped in a curse, and one of the many conditions it operated on was reproductive sterility. That was the domain of humans.

On the other hand, living forever and regenerating from any major injury was totally awesome.

Shelly was still giving him the stink-eye, and Ontario just smiled weakly by way of a response. Canada suddenly bolted up off the couch, staring straight at Ontario with an expression of absolute terror on his face.

He quickly forced on the most nervous smile the personification had ever seen, and before Ontario could ask Canada what the hell was going on (in French, obviously, lest Shelly call the police on them) the nation cut him off.

"Ah...Miss Price? What...what would you like me to make up for supper? Would you like me to do up some steaks?"

Steaks?

There was desperation in that man's voice, Ontario noticed; perhaps Canada's plan was to grill up some steaks in an attempt to curry favour with Shelly. Whatever she was reading, Canada must have gotten a good look at it.

Shelly just nodded, closing up her tablet and putting it away.

She was still staring at them.

Ontario gulped.

* * *

 _Meanwhile..._

Manitoba grinned and cracked his knuckles.

"Well, well, well. Look who came to play with the so-called parasites." The Métis man spat, hatred burning in his blue eyes. The prairie province had some as-yet unresolved anger issues that normally just bubbled away deep within his brain. It turned out that making a province out of the personification of a group of violent rebels left the kid with some deeply-buried rage. Who knew? The last few days had just been an exercise in bringing those issues to the surface and seeing exactly how angry Manitoba could truly be.

This was not something Corvus really wanted to find out, but he didn't have much of a choice.

And to make matters even worse, the prairie province was standing in front of the door to the cage.

The premier had a spare set of keys that Calgary hadn't bothered to ask for. Perhaps because the city simply didn't know about them; Corvus had taken great pains to conceal them from everyone, just in case he should get trapped in his own cage.

Having the keys was all well and good, but ensuring he'd be alive to actually use them was the situation that he _hadn't_ planned for.

Manitoba was a tall, tall man, and when he lunged, Corvus yelped in fright. A huge, spade-shaped hand grabbed the front of the premier's black suit, jerking him hockey-style into convenient bludgeoning range for the province's upraised fist.

"I'M GONNA TEAR YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF AND THEN GET QUEBEC TO MAKE SOUP WITH YOUR _FUCKING_ _ **BLOOD**_!"

"...Ew." Québec commented from his corner, unwilling to lift a finger to help the premier but more than a little grossed out by the idea of Corvus Minestrone. It would probably taste like steak sauce and corruption. _Blech._

 ** _"_** ** _WAIT! PLEASE, PLEASE I CAN HELP YOU STOP-"_**

Manitoba didn't give a rat's ass about what the human wanted. He was a fucking monster, and he needed a good hard punch square in the jaw. Get rid of some of those nice white teeth, maybe then he wouldn't go around calling people parasites just 'cause they were born a _certain fucking way-_

Suddenly, someone grabbed his wrist and held his fist back.

"Manny. Stop."

The Métis man whipped his head around and snarled at Saskatchewan, fist still clenching the front of Corvus's clothes. His younger brother had a death grip on his wrist, and though Manitoba was loath to admit it, the farmer's strength had long since surpassed his own.

"Why? Why the fuck should I stop? Give me one good reason I shouldn't beat this fucking human to death and then piss on his fucking corpse. One. Good. Reason."

Saskatchewan sighed.

"Much as I'd love for you to get rid of him for us...we need his help."

The entire cage went dead silent as BC and Québec stared at the tall blonde farmer like he'd lost his fucking mind.

"...His HELP?!" echoed Manitoba, his voice rattling the bars of the cage overhead and being absorbed by the soundproofing in the walls, "HIS FUCKING "HELP" IS WHAT FUCKED UP ALBERTA IN THE FIRST PLACE! HIS FUCKING "HELP" IS WHY WE'RE STUCK IN THIS FUCKING CAGE WITH NO FUCKING FOOD!"

Saskatchewan sighed. "...That's a fair point, I guess."

Corvus sensed his only reprieve was slipping away from him, and before the farmer had let go of Manitoba's wrist, he spluttered:

"WAIT- I- I HAVE A SPARE SET OF KEYS! I CAN HELP YOU! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DON'T KILL ME-"

Well, there went his ace in the hole.

Manitoba raised an eyebrow, still glaring at him.

"Good. We'll pull them off your corpse on the way out." He ripped his fist out of Saskatchewan's startled grip, raised it up, and-

"MANNY, STOP!"

This time Saskatchewan wasn't alone in restraining his brother. BC had joined the fray, and with the two of them holding his arm back, that limb wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

And to Corvus's immense relief, Manitoba released his shirt in an attempt to get his siblings off of him.

"Manny, for fuck's sake, if I fall on you, you're not getting up anytime soon-" BC growled, "And you. Human. How the fuck can you help us?"

Corvus swallowed nervously.

"I, I'll...I'll explain the- the frequency! I'll explain everything! Just- Just spare me, please!"

The premier was aware that he sounded weak and pathetic, but that was because he was. Getting out of that cage alive was slightly higher on his priorities list than ensuring his plan came to fruition. After all, he needed to be alive to have that happen, and besides, there wasn't some magical kill-code to switch all the brainwashing off; it wasn't like they could touch him even if he did tell them everything.

Saskatchewan was staring at him, and you could see the wheels turning in his head as he processed Corvus's statement and thought about what he intended to do next. He was here for one reason and one reason only, and that was to save his twin sister. And Corvus had just offered him a golden opportunity to do exactly that.

"You will, eh?" he echoed, eyes narrowing, "You'll explain _everything?"_

 _"_ _Yes! Everything! Anything you want to know! Please don't kill me oh please oh please-"_

An idea entered the farmer's mind. A germ of a plan, the seeds sown and ready to grow into something greater. Step one was naturally to get the hell out of dodge, which wasn't liable to be easy. They needed both Corvus, and Corvus's keys, and a way to ensure Corvus wouldn't immediately roll on them the minute they let him out of the cage, which was doubtless what the slimy fucker was intent on doing.

Saskatchewan tapped Manitoba on the shoulder and gestured for his brother to move aside, which he grudgingly did, giving his younger brother the stink-eye as he did so.

And then it was Saskatchewan who stood between Corvus and freedom, and he held out his hand. The intimidation factor was somewhat spoiled without his trademark straw hat; he never packed it with him when he went to Council of the Federation meetings, since it tended to get squashed in the plane's hold and he would be damned before he was checking a fucking hat box separately from his luggage.

Still, it seemed to work- the premier shrank away from his scowl, and Saskatchewan crooked his fingers and very calmly said,

"Give me your keys."

Corvus shook his head. No, no a thousand times no. He wasn't handing over his only bargaining chip, no way no how-

"Listen to me, Corvus. Give me your keys or I really will let Manny beat you to death and to hell with the consequences. I, personally, _want_ you alive. Do you understand me, human? I **want** you alive. I don't **need** you alive. Now give me the keys or we'll stove your head in."

Sometimes, Saskatchewan was very glad he had the ability to lie with a straight face.

Corvus decided it was best not to test the blonde fellow's temper and grudgingly pulled the keys out of a hidden pocket on the inside of his jacket, revealing the empty handgun holster for a fraction of a second as he did so. The premier was already scheming himself, already formulating a plan of his own. Oh, he'd help these parasites escape, he certainly would. He'd even offer them his blessings for a safe passage to his own house. And then he'd hand over _all_ the secrets of his special frequency, _of course_ he would.

And by the time he was done telling them all his secrets, they'd all be marching to the beat of his drum, as inexorably as the people of Alberta.

Perhaps he'd order the French one to shoot himself. That would be fun to watch, at the very least. The green-eyed farmer he couldn't touch, because he was Alberta's twin; he'd just get him to shoot that other one, Manitoba. That would do a good job of breaking the boy, and also take care of that particular loose end. He didn't care much for the woman who smelt of weed, but she was necessary too; he'd tolerate her presence for now, if only because she had the access to the ocean they so desperately needed.

Yes. That was an excellent plan.

Corvus's keys came to rest in the palm of Saskatchewan's hand, and by the time they had the premier's face had gone from terrified to defiant. Oh, he'd play along with their little game, and perhaps he'd be able to break their spirits along the way.

What fun it was to play with the minds of immortals.

"I take it you intend to escape?" Corvus said calmly, the smile creeping back onto his face. He could feel the power returning to him, where it rightfully belonged. They may have been all-powerful in this tiny cage, but outside the bars he still held the real power.

"Because if you DO intend to escape, perhaps it would be prudent to take me with you. And perhaps it would be even more prudent to allow me to convince mister Edmonton to come with us, too. He can sense you all moving around, you know. And he will know if you attempt to leave. And then he might...call the police. Which would be rather a shame, wouldn't it?"

Silence was the only response. Brows were furrowed, and Saskatchewan had opened his mouth to reply as soon as one came to mind, but Corvus cut him off.

"So perhaps it might be prudent to put you lot in handcuffs and get Edmonton to get a pistol off the guards so we might properly escort you from the building-"

"Or perhaps it might be prudent to just put you in a headlock and threaten to snap your fucking neck. That might also be prudent. I think Sasky can do the holding, and I'll make sure Eddy won't be seeing anything but stars for awhile, you know?"

To everyone's surprise, it was BC that spoke those words. The raven-haired woman had had enough of Corvus's shit, and it was high time they got the fuck out of there.

"Anyway...I think we've argued enough. Shall we, boys?"

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _-I know the rules say no song lyrics, but shhh. I just added that 'cause I felt it was quite apropos. It ain't a songfic if there's no song, right?_

 _So I'm going off to uni in a week, and I had to go shopping for clothes today. Bleh. Which is why your update was so late. Double bleh._

 _Also, it's officially been an entire week since the story stats worked, and I get the feeling I'm never gonna see those views again. What's with this site and being generally shit? There hasn't even been mention of it on the site news. I'd move to Ao3, but I don't write gay porn so I probably wouldn't fit in._

 _That was a joke, nobody get butthurt._

 _Anyway, what with the traffic graph still snorting arsenic off a lead table, reviews, follows and favourites are the only way I have of knowing anyone's reading. Don't be shy guys._


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter Twenty-six**

* * *

There was a heart-stopping gasp from all five people trapped in Corvus's cage when Saskatchewan fumbled the keys and dropped them to the floor.

Thankfully, they fell straight down, more of a minor nuisance than a guarantee that they would be trapped in there forever. The farmer growled and bent down to scoop them up, feeding them back into the lock and managing to select the right key that time.

The cage door opened with a 'click', and Saskatchewan pushed the cage door open, turning back to nod at Manitoba. His brother nodded back in understanding, and immediately grabbed Corvus in a headlock- Saskatchewan had managed to calm the Métis fellow down by explaining to him in German what exactly he was planning to do. German being a language only they spoke, the other three merely stared as the farmer relayed his plan.

"Hey, Corvus? Where's the other handgun, eh?" That was BC talking, and she followed Saskatchewan out, gesturing for the Frenchie to come next.

"I- It's with- with Edmonton. I only have the two!" he managed to gasp out, and Manitoba loosened his chokehold on the premier's windpipe ever so slightly when he realized he was slowly strangling the human to death.

Québec rolled his eyes and muttered something to himself in French, undoubtedly some kind of derisive remark on the whole sorry affair as he followed BC out, his green-blue eyes glancing at the torture rack and causing him to shudder. Yes, it was Calgary up on that rack, and yes, he too was a Fucking Anglo Bastard, but...well, he was still a person, and no person deserved that kind of torment. Listening to Corvus break the man's spirit...it was almost torture in and of itself. And Québec wanted nothing more than to slice the human's face up with a butcher's knife, or perhaps just cut out his tongue and fry it up with some butter and sauce and feed it to Labrador's Labrador.

Manitoba was last, since he had the unpleasant job of dragging the human along, but strangely, instead of unlocking the door, Saskatchewan seemed to be busying himself with rooting through small cubby where Corvus had, according to Manitoba, stashed Calgary's clothes.

It was a little three-level drawer set, of the sort that one could buy at IKEA; clearly it was just something that was there for a purely utilitarian purpose for want of a more appropriate item to fill its shoes. Each drawer was a bright and cheery colour, and it was in stark contrast to the horrors of the room around it- or the horrors that were contained within it.

Saskatchewan started pulling things out of the topmost drawer, dropping them on the floor haphazardly to the growing horror of his fellow provinces. Spare batteries, a package of scalpel blades, piano wire, pliers, a package of hypodermic needles, some clear fluid in vials that was nothing short of sinister...

But then Saskatchewan found what he was looking for. A pair of handcuffs, and after a few more minutes of rooting through Corvus's filing cabinet of horrors, a folding knife. And by the time he straightened up, the two items clutched in his hands, Manitoba had gone from a loose headlock to actively attempting to choke the human to death. BC and Québec were both pale as ghosts, and equally as horrified as Saskatchewan himself; the farmer was merely better at hiding it.

"Okay, let's cuff the fucker. Manny, here's a knife. Don't actually use it unless I say so, got it?"

His older brother huffed, accepting the items from him. To do that, he had to release Corvus from his chokehold, and for a moment the premier considered fleeing through the open door. For a fleeting moment, which swiftly passed when BC stepped in his way, folded her arms, and scowled.

"Oh no you fucking don't."

Manitoba cuffed Corvus's hand behind him and then extended the knife blade, grabbing onto the human's shoulder to ensure he wouldn't try to flee.

"Let's get the fuck outta dodge." He said, jerking his head towards the door.

There was a round of understanding nods, and Saskatchewan turned the doorhandle and shoved the steel door open, pocketing the keys with his free hand. He held the door open for the others, wordlessly following along as BC lead the group up towards the stairs.

"So I assume ze plan is get up zere and zen run like 'ell?" Québec asked rhetorically, fully expecting the answer to be no more than that. BC did not disappoint.

"Pretty much. I'll take care of Eddy, you guys just get to the doors...Actually, wait."

She topped right on the topmost step to the basement, leaning on the door to the legislature's cafeteria.

"Here's a thought. Why don't we just lure Eddy down here? I can chuck a table at him or something, and then we'll have his gun too. But we need a lure, and a distraction, and something to get him good and pissed off..."

BC looked back at Québec and smirked.

"Hey, Frenchie. It's showtime."

* * *

 _Sploosh._

"Heh."

 _Sploosh._

"Hee."

 _Sploosh. Sploosh. Splooshsplooshsplooshsploosh._

Edmonton was grinning ear to ear as he threw Cal's money in the legislature's indoor fountain. His brother had apparently flung the handful of coins into the guard's faces during his escape attempt, and nobody had bothered to claim the money. So he'd decided to amuse himself by...disposing of it.

That was, of course, until he heard something very strange indeed.

It was...Yelling. Coming from the cafeteria.

Now the legislature didn't have any ghosts, at least not to Edmonton's knowledge; and certainly none that loudly yelled every slightest thought that crossed their minds. He cocked his handgun, stopping at the top of the steps and listening for a moment.

 _"_ _YOU'RE A BUNCH OF STUPIDE ANGLO BASTARDS! YOUR STEAK TASTES TRES_ _ **TERRIBLE!**_ _"_

Edmonton scowled. Okay, one, that was CLEARLY Québec, and two, _nobody dissed Alberta beef in front of him and got away with it._ He cocked the handgun, chambering a round and stomping down the steps. That Frenchie was gonna pay in his blood.

"ZE ROCKIES ARE UGLY! YOUR OILSANDS ARE A DISGRACE! 'OW MANY DEAD DUCKS, EDMONTON?! 'OW MANY? TOO MANY! AND CITY OF CHAMPIONS? NON, CITY OF UGLY HOOKERS!"

Edmonton took the last few steps two at a time, busting into the cafeteria, eyes already locked on the obnoxious French fucker who was quite literally dancing on a tabletop as he continued to yell and scream every insulting thing that sprang to mind. Edmonton didn't even care about keeping the prisoner alive, nor did he care about how in god's name the Frenchie escaped. He raised the handgun, training it on Québec's head-

Somewhere off to the left, BC grunted, and Edmonton whipped his head just in time to see an entire table come sailing straight at him. To say the impact was painful was like saying that the ocean was a bit damp.

Edmonton's finger managed somehow to yank on the trigger, firing off a shot that went wild and embedded itself in the ceiling not five feet from where Québec was doing his little impromptu dance recital. To the Frenchie's credit, he didn't so much as break stride, though he did flinch a little. Then again, he'd been performing since the days when it was socially acceptable to throw things at the artists onstage if they failed to impress.

British Columbia just smirked and folded her arms. Manitoba was staring at her, mouth agape, and so was Corvus. Saskatchewan was a little bit busy diving for Edmonton's gun while the city was still stunned and pinned to the floor. Eddy's glasses had fallen off his face and gone skidding across the tile, which was another small blessing for them.

Saskatchewan pulled the clip to check how many bullets were in it, and then gestured for all of them to follow him. They needed to get the fuck out of there, STAT.

Four pairs of booted feet slapped on the marble floors as they sprinted for the exit. Manitoba had decided to just throw Corvus over his shoulder in a fireman's carry to save himself from dragging the useless sack of bones along behind him. The only downside was the fact that Corvus refused to shut the fuck up about it. But given the choice between Corvus's bitching and getting shot, Manitoba picked the bitching, every single time.

Man, the security in this place was complete ass. Who the hell was in charge of safeguarding the building, a dead cat?

BC had body-checked the guard that had tried to stop her, and Saskatchewan had checked his guard as well- hockey training was honestly the best damn thing, it really was. Canada's hockey training in specific, because that focused on the fine art of bludgeoning your enemy into submission and then scoring a bajillion goals while he cried in agony.

It wasn't even a surprise to him when he burst through the double doors and was greeted by the sound of gunfire. The Edmonton Police had apparently been camped out in front of the building, and he sprinted down the steps, Corvus yelling blue bloody murder somewhere behind him. He followed Québec in streaking towards the back lot, the sound of handgun fire roaring all around them.

Damn, it was like everyone forgot to pack their accurate guns today. Then again, they were all using handguns from what he could see, and most of them were a ways away- and one does not simply snipe with a .44 magnum. Having the premier slung over his shoulder probably also helped with not getting shot.

Québec had already got to the rental car first, having backed it out and lined it up with the exit. Manitoba just ran, the final mad dash to the finish line. He ripped open the back door and literally threw the premier inside- ouch, that was probably gonna bruise- slamming the car door shut, and then-

Manitoba had just managed to get his own door open, had gotten himself most of the way into the seat- when something slammed into his side. It initially felt like he'd been stabbed with a large, white-hot needle, and then...nothing. He managed to reach over and slam the car door shut, which was Québec's cue to stamp on the gas and get them the fuck out of there.

It was only when Manitoba reached up to do up his seatbelt that he realized what had happened.

He looked down at the massive amount of dark red blood that was spilling out of the right side of his torso, soaking through his Winnipeg Jets hoodie and into the rental's fabric. Wow. Wow, he was...really bleeding. That was a lot of blood. He faintly realized that he'd gone into shock, which was about the only reason why he wasn't howling in agony.

He'd been the only one who'd been standing still at any point in the escape for more than a second. He'd had to throw Corvus in the back of the car, and then had to get in himself- ample time to give a well-trained police officer time to line up their sights.

"...I think I got shot." Manitoba mumbled faintly, staring at the gaping wound as he started to slump forwards in his seat.

* * *

 _Several hours earlier, in Lethbridge..._

"Prime Minister Slate, Sir?"

"YES?"

"What's the plan?"

The young soldier looked at the prime minister with equal parts fear, concern, and a decent amount of disdain. The PM was proving himself to be an incompetent general in every sense of the word, and it was driving the coalition's leaders to drink.

For a start, not all of the riot police were even in Alberta yet. PEI had donated as many guys as they could afford to spare, which was a grand total of three; all three of whom were crammed into a twin-engine prop plane farting its way across the skies. That wouldn't have been an issue if it weren't' for the fact that Slate's incompetence had allowed many of their vehicles to be crippled the previous day.

He'd decided they were going to attack Calgary first thing in the morning, underestimating the length of the drive. On top of that, many of their vehicles had been sabotaged by angry locals in the night- knives were plunged deep into many of their truck tires, and they kept having to fight off packs of angry protesters pissed off at the army presence in their city.

Occupying Lethbridge wasn't even a necessity. It was still warm enough out for pitching a tent city in some farmer's field to be a viable option, and indeed, many of the army guys had come prepared to do exactly that. But Slate had insisted they take Lethbridge, so they had.

And here they were, set up in a makeshift command centre in a school gymnasium, surrounded on all sides by locals who wanted to kill them. Martial law hadn't helped- if anything, it had just made the situation worse.

And to put the cherry on it, Slate was accepting intel from an _alleged_ defector. A Calgary police cruiser had come screaming into Lethbridge from the north end, the back shot all full of holes and the driver shaking like a leaf. She'd demanded to see the person in charge, claiming he was there to join their side because the rest of the city had gone crazy. she'd apparently managed to steal some intel off Commander Gunnar's desk, and taken off in her squad car when they tried to shoot her.

Slate was apparently the only one among the coalition who didn't seem to think there was something incredibly fishy about the whole thing. They'd interrogated the officer, and she'd confessed that she didn't know very much at all about the whole thing; and furthermore, when the corporal doing the interrogating had asked if she would fight for their side, the woman had vehemently refused. She was still loyal to her province, even if she had just defected.

Slate rubbed his hands together gleefully, the scattered pile of papers spread out on the table around the map.

"OH, THE PLAN IS GOING TO BE A DOOZY, KID. WE'RE GOING TO SPLIT THE COALITION INTO INDIVIDUAL UNITS TO TAKE ON THEIR FORCES, AND WE'RE GOING TO PRIORITIZE TAKING THE CITY CENTRE AND WORK OUR WAY OUT FROM THERE. THIS CITY'S TOO DAMN SPREAD OUT FOR US TO HAVE A HOPE OF TAKING THE ENTIRE THING, SO WE'LL FOCUS ON THE NERVE CENTRE FOR NOW."

He was grinning ear to ear, clearly excited. The documents penned in Gunnar's hand suggested that their base of operations was located somewhere in the +15 network, and that it would be too much of a production to move it. To make things even sweeter, Gunnar had requested no security around the command centre, instead choosing to take the gamble and put all of his troops on the front lines. They were outgunned and outnumbered, and the Prime Minister wanted to cackle with unbridled glee.

"I WILL PERSONALLY BE TAKING CARE OF THAT TRAITOR GUNNAR, CHEIF MORRISON, AND ALL THEIR OTHER CRONY FRIENDS." Slate announced, puffing up his chest in pride. Oh, this would look soooooo good on the lawn signs come next election. He was gonna be a national hero, he just knew it. They were probably gonna give him a state funer- well, he was Prime minister, he was already entitled to a state funeral. Well, maybe they'd name an island after him, or perhaps declare a national holiday in his honor. Or maybe he'd get the Order of Canada. Or the Victoria Cross...

The soldier left the room, shaking his head. He pulled out his phone and dialed his mum. Apologizing for every bad thing he'd ever done would be a good start, followed by asking her to look after his boyfriend and feed his dog.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Going into shock is not fun, I'll be honest with you. But now that this chapter's out of the way, I can finally start building the one everyone's been waiting for. No spoilers, though._

 _Hope you enjoyed that. Not my best work, but like a tire patch kit on the Trans-Canada, it'll keep us rolling._

 _Hopefully the traffic graph un-fucks itself tomorrow, but for now, Reviews, follows, and favourites. Don't be shy, guys._


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter Twenty-Seven**

* * *

 _Later that night..._

 _"_ _...I'm sure you'll appreciate this once I'm done, my boy. You'll understand. I'm helping, you see. You were broken, and so I shall repair you."_

 _Calgary gasped, straining against the steel cuffs biting into his wrists. He was screaming, he knew he was screaming, he could feel himself screaming- why couldn't he hear the screams?! He was screaming and screaming and there was no sound, there was nothing. Nobody could hear him._

 _A hand gently came to rest on his bare chest, a perverse mockery of comfort._

 _"_ _Oh, don't worry. I took your voice away...it was broken too. I'll fix it for you. Why don't you open your eyes?"_

 _And he did._

 _Corvus smiled at him sweetly, a large knife in his hands and a table next to him. There were...things. Things under a sheet, a sheet stained with blood. It was so dark in that room, so lonely and empty. But that wasn't what caught his attention. Because Corvus held in his hands something Calgary recognized immediately._

 _His heart. And it was still beating, still glistening and damp with his blood. A warm organ of flesh and blood, snaked with veins that seemed to glow a soft golden colour. His heart was special, so much more than just an organ to pump blood; it was his connection to his people, his conduit to their hopes and dreams and desires. His heart glowed softly with each beat, and the hearts of those million people beat with it. But it wasn't inside of him where it should have rightly been. Calgary looked down frantically- his chest. His chest had a hole in it. A huge, gaping hole, and there was nothing inside of him but black emptiness._

 _"_ _I can help you." Corvus said, holding up the heart in his hand so Calgary could see. And then he crushed it, fingers sinking into the rapidly shrinking, deflating flesh, until nothing but black, sticky blood dribbled out between his fingers._

 _The raven-haired man pulled the sheet off the table, and let the city have a good long look. There were rows of bizarre machines, each small enough to fit in the palm of your hand; machines with gears and wires and pipes, oils dripping down their gleaming steel surfaces, and all of them were so cold, so hollow and empty; Corvus picked one off the table that ticked mechanically, placing it in his empty chest and nodding in satisfaction._

 _It was cold. So, so cold. He felt it inside of him, like he'd swallowed an ice cube and it had gotten stuck in his throat; the cold almost burned, and he couldn't help but writhe in place on the rack; that mechanical heart's gears seemed to tear at his insides, tear at his mind, tear at his soul._

 _And Corvus didn't stop there. He kept going with the care of a surgeon, picking up this part or that piece and placing it inside him. The cold tore at his insides, the gears ground at his soul; the softer parts of him were being ripped away by their relentless ticking. One by one the parts came off the table, and one by one they were placed with the utmost care until there was nothing left inside of him but empty, soulless metal._

 _"_ _Ah, perfect. You're almost fixed, my boy. Don't worry, this last thing will only take a minute..."_

 _There was a soft 'click' somewhere over to the side of him, and Cal fell off the rack and onto the cold stone floor. It didn't hurt at all._

 _He'd gone completely numb._

 _He felt something brushing against his neck, and it kind of itched a bit- there was the distant sensation of something being horribly, horribly wrong, but Calgary couldn't move. His arms and legs were dead, and he could barely even blink._

 _Corvus straightened up and dropped something a few feet away- the knife. The knife that was now dripping with his blood._

 _He took a few steps away, taking one final item out from under the sheet and crouching down in front of the fallen personification._

 _The item in his hands was a brass windup key._

 _He reached behind Calgary's neck and there was the faint sensation of something touching him as Corvus pushed the key in and wound it up, each turn of the crank making another little 'click'. The cold that burned at his body seemed to fade with each turn of the key, and with every click...well, he didn't warm up, really. The cold just became easier and easier to ignore, until finally he barely realized it was there at all. The mechanism gave a loud "clunk!" to indicate it was fully wound, and Corvus straightened back up, smiling down at his creation._

 _"_ _Get up."_

 _And he did, the hole in his chest patched over with a new layer of skin, but the empty machines still embedded within. He stood to his full height, staring straight ahead. Every movement should have caused him pain, but instead he just felt...nothing._

 _No pain._

 _Nothing._

 _"_ _There's nothing left in you to hold you back. Nothing but perfection, wouldn't you agree?"_

 _Calgary wanted to scream. He wanted to scream and run and shake his head and strangle the monster that was standing next to him. It was like he was trapped in someone else's mind, someone else's body, as they nodded their head mechanically in time with the ticking in their new metal heart._

* * *

Calgary woke up screaming.

He was drenched in sweat, gasping for air and looking down at himself. No, No- No holes. No blood. Did he still have a pulse-? Yes. Yes, that was a heartbeat.

He wasn't- he wasn't back _there_.

He was in his bedroom. His Calgary Flames banner. His signed jerseys hanging in his closet; jerseys signed by Lanny Macdonald and Mike Vernon. His painting of the sun setting over the Rocky Mountains. His cowboy hat resting on his nightstand where it always did, where he always liked to place it so it was the first thing he saw when he woke up. He collapsed back on his own pillows, staring up at the ceiling and feeling...

...Faintly horrified. Faintly.

There was agony in his heart, to be sure, but it was fading; every time he tried to contemplate the nightmare, the chanting of his people filled his mind, gently washing the pain away, bit by bit, until there was nothing left in his mind but irritation at having been so rudely awoken.

The horror at the nightmare had faded, like it was already an old scar; he sighed and sat up, rubbing at his forehead. What time...? Two AM? Fuck, he needed to sleep.

The city growled as he sank back into the sheets, staring up at his ceiling for a minute before rolling on his side and closing his eyes. He had shit to do in the morning and no time for stupid fucking nightmares. Not when an army was literally massing three doors down.

And if he was crying a little bit as he drifted off to sleep once more, well, nobody had to know.

* * *

 _The next morning..._

Getting smacked with a wooden spoon isn't a pleasant occurrence at the best of times, but when it's how someone decides to wake you up at _five o'clock in the morning,_ it crosses the line from abusive to pure evil. Canada had had many unpleasant wake-up calls in his life, most notably from the smell of mustard gas in the muddy trench he was basically passed out in from sheer exhaustion, but this was certainly up there on the list.

"Get up. Get up NOW, you eastern scum!"

Shelly's voice was decidedly vicious, and as Canada blearily opened his purple eyes, looking up at her almost fearfully.

She'd called the police. She'd called the police and they were going to drag him and Ontario and Walt into the street and shoot all three of them. His heart seized in his chest, not out of fear for himself, but out of fear for Walt. He would come back. He always came back. But Walt? Walt would be dead forever.

"You and Mackenzie have fifteen minutes to get your shit together and get out of my house, or I'm calling in backu- I mean, I'm calling the cops, got it?" Shelly hissed, "You're a danger to my family and you're a danger to Walt. If they find your truck in my driveway we're _all_ getting hauled off to the Big Four Building, and that's not a good thing in the fucking _slightest."_

The way she said the words "Big Four Building" made Canada shiver a little. He knew what she meant, sort of. Calgary held the Stampede every year, and they held it on the Stampede Grounds, a large area of downtown Calgary devoted to the yearly festival. It was dominated by the Saddledome and a few other major buildings, but most of it was pavement- during the rest of the year, it was used as a parking lot for hockey games, but during stampede week, not at all. But one of the major buildings on the grounds was the Big Four building, and Canada was more than a little concerned by the way she'd said it. He'd been in that building- it was just a big empty space, a concrete floor and ceilings high above. What could possibly be sinister or dangerous about that?

Then again, the word 'cops' registered in his mind, and he bolted up off the couch with a groan.

"There's a clean toothbrush in the bathroom for you. Throw it out when you're done, got it? And...okay, you can borrow my hairbrush. Jesus, you've got a rat's nest up there. But then I want you and your fucking buddy to get the hell out of my house, got it?"

Canada blushed at her hair comment, silently cursing his tangle-prone mop and wondering if it might not be prudent to just chop it all off. On the other hand, he liked his hair the way it was...but whatever. He rose, mumbling a thank you and stumbling to the bathroom while Shelly went to go smack Ontario awake too.

Not that Canada had slept particularly well, since this city was so enraged. He'd been tormented by night terrors as the millions of Albertans all whispered all the ways they'd love to kill him in his mind, and it had added up to one of the less restful nights he'd ever had.

Not as bad as Vimy Ridge, though.

The 'spare toothbrush' Shelly had mentioned had probably been given to her son Jason at a recent dentist's appointment, judging by the colourful cartoon characters on the handle. But whatever, right? It was a toothbrush, it was still in the package, and that was all that mattered.

Ontario stumbled over and leaned his head on the door, looking completely out of it. They both needed a cup of coffee, but after the shit Canada had seen last night, he was afraid the employees at Tim Hortons might slip some rat poison in his drink. The nation finished and seized Shelly's hairbrush, desperately attempting to sort out the blonde rat's nest within the fifteen minutes Shelly had allotted them. Ontario took his place at the sink, mechanically brushing his own teeth- he'd taken off his gray suit jacket and tie and was just in his deeply creased dress shirt.

Shelly was stomping around upstairs in her bedroom, doing...something. Canada didn't care, as long as she wasn't calling the police. Just as he'd gotten his rat's nest of hair untangled and smoothed out, the house's phone started to ring. Canada was about to go answer it out of sheer politeness, but Shelly beat him to the punch. Who the fuck would be calling them at 5 AM, for god's sake?

"Hello?"

There was a pause, and Canada started towards the door. Shelly was in the kitchen, clutching the phone- and the nation's heart seized in his chest as he realized that Shelly wasn't just stomping around upstairs for no reason. No, she was getting changed- into a police officer's working uniform. Her baby bump was stretching the shirt somewhat, but it would hold-for now.

"...Keith?!"

And then he froze. She sounded like she was about to cry. She sounded afraid, afraid for her husband, and as the person on the other end of the line spoke, tears began to trickle down her face.

"No- Keith, Keith, no- Please, snap out of it- KEITH! **_SNAP OUT OF IT!"_**

And then, presumably, the line went dead.

Shelly looked at the phone in her hands like it was a live grenade, hands trembling as she processed whatever it was she'd just heard. And then she just shook her head, the tears still dripping down the side of her face.

Canada was about to open his mouth to ask what was going on, but before he could even get the words out, Shelly just whipped her head to stare at him, and her eyes burned with hatred.

"GET OUT!" she screamed, "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE! SCUM! YOU ARE FUCKING SCUM, DO YOU HEAR ME!? **_THEY'VE GOT MY FUCKING HUSBAND! THEY'VE GOT MY FUCKING HUSBAND, AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!"_**

Canada just backed away, eyes wide. Ontario was done in the bathroom, and hew sidled up to his nation, both of them backing up slowly as Shelly screamed at them.

"YOUR FIFTEEN MINUTES IS FUCKING UP! NOW GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE, **_BEFORE I KILL YOU!"_**

Ontario and Canada looked at each other in terror, sprinting out the front door and scrambling into the stolen pickup truck.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Arrrgh, so much filler I want to add, but there's a big huge confrontation lashed screaming to the tracks up ahead. It's just that the conductor of the train (that would be me) keeps putting on the brakes to dither about with side shit._

 _Ah well, gonna be paying homage to a short story I love in the near future._

 _I'm so sorry about not updating- fanfiction wouldn't let me log in due to a power outage taking down one of their servers. But I'm baaaaack!_

 _Also, the traffic graph is back, but with that said: follows, favourites, and especially reviews are as always greatly appreciated._


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter Twenty-Eight**

* * *

 _A few hours later..._

Alberta smiled.

She could feel their hate. She could feel how angry they were, how much they wanted to rip and burn and slaughter and tear and destroy. They wanted to slaughter their foes, or better yet, capture them in their untold hundreds and open their eyes to the truth. Prisoners of war to be freed from their mental shackles; a kindness, really. But most of all, they wanted to beat back the occupying forces that even now squatted on Lethbridge like a repulsive tumor.

The people of Calgary wanted **war.**

And she would fight with them, shoulder to shoulder, as they beat back the demons and vampires and parasites of the east. They would be free.

The sun was rising over the glimmering skyscrapers as the untold thousands who had been sleeping there with bedrolls and blankets made their way down to street level, an endless human tide pouring onto the streets with weapons clutched in hand. Some had brought their supplies with them, others hadn't so as to be more mobile for the battle ahead.

Construction crews were erecting barricades of wood and scrap concrete and junked cars, plugging off each street in the downtown core on one end. There was only going to be one entrance to each street, and only one exit; the same ones.

The only exception was Seventh Street, because that was the one with the train tracks; blocking that off would be suicidal, since more and more hate-crazed Calgarians were pouring in, trainload after trainload of construction workers, white collar oilmen, nurses, welders, teenagers, university students. It was a human tide, a human tide intent on one thing and one thing only- protecting their city.

Alberta stood on the steps of the old town hall, watching as the humans scurried to and fro. Gunnar had given her his own gun, and she'd brought a few weapons of her own- a buck knife and a steel hockey stick. Useless for actual hockey, fantastic for breaking skulls. She really wasn't a gun sort of gal; she'd certainly use it in a tight spot, but breaking faces was just soooo much more satisfying.

Alberta watched from her perch as humans scurried to and fro, setting up the final preparations for the counterattack. Humans were already grouping themselves into squadrons, each one assigned a score of police officers and a handful of armed soldiers. The loosely defined platoons came in two flavours: civvies with bludgeons, blades, swords, and claws, and the ones who'd thought to pack a firearm. The gun squadrons were far fewer in number, since even getting ahold of a gun license was a pain in the ass- they also seemed to get more cops assigned to them than the others.

A pickup truck honked its horn, prompting a group of people who were standing in the middle of the street to part for it to pass. The truck trundled slowly along, and in the truck's bed- a kettle drum, or timpani, as well as the drummer to play it. It trundled to its assigned intersection and parked, the drummer standing up and sitting on the roof of the truck's cab as she waited. It was just one of a network of loud kettle drums that had been set up- one at every intersection. Their purpose was...unclear, but Alberta wasn't about to ask questions. The coalition was coming in prepared for a riot, not an organized, heavily armed mob.

It was almost heartwarming watching the city co-operate to erect the barricades, block off the bridges, ready the guns; civilians helped run shells from the army supply trucks to the artillery pieces where they'd been set up. The military-grade weaponry was a final safety net; Gunnar had stated he would only authorize its use if all else failed and if they had no other options left.

Crews with keys were running to and fro, locking up the entrances to the +15 network- it presented a risk, an overhead sniping risk. The +15's were a network of aboveground walkways or tunnels that connected the vast majority of the downtown's buildings and allowed for one to get from one end of the city to the other without ever going outside- a unique feature of the city's architecture. It was also a confusing rat warren that was easy as all hell to get lost in, and perhaps that was why they were locking it up- not everyone knew how to use the network or which way to go, and the odds of people getting lost were very good. But there was another reason, or so Commander Gunnar had said to her when she'd come to discuss the plan. But that other reason was Cal's job, Calgary's duty; her job was to fight to the last man, and take out any personifications who might have joined the coalition.

That wasn't a concern. Ontario and Canada were somewhere in the downtown core, a few blocks over; she couldn't tell precisely where, but she'd leave them be for now. There was still the overwhelming desire to slit both their throats for daring to set foot on her soil, of course there was, but on the other hand, letting them live would be so much sweeter.

She wanted them to understand the true meaning of **_fear._** Of hate. And she wanted Canada to see what neglecting her people had truly sown in all their hearts.

Alberta decided that if they won the battle (for it certainly wasn't a foregone conclusion) she was going to personally hunt the two of them down and drag them into the streets for the people to do as they pleased. That would be a nice reward for all involved, she was sure.

But she'd let them cower like rats in their warren for right now. What she was mildly concerned about was the fact that her twin, as well as BC, Manitoba, and that fucking frog had moved from Edmonton to somewhere in the middle of Red Deer, a city located between Calgary and Edmonton. Then again, the Premier's house and his riding were located in that area, so perhaps he was merely transferring them to a separate cage in his own home for privacy reasons? A little strange, but she had bigger fish to fry, so she contented herself with that particular theory.

Alberta hopped off the raised ledge she'd been idly sitting on, walking up to a particularly angry-looking crowd that was being herded to the front lines by the loose group of soldiers and officers in back. They wanted to go in that direction, certainly; the front line was the best place to be, after all. That was where the blood would be spilled, and that was where the fools would be broken before them by their righteous fury. But they all seemed to have a different idea to get there, and Alberta rolled her eyes, raising two fingers up to her lips and whistling very loudly to get their attention.

"HEY! THIS WAY, FOLLOW ME!" she hollered, raising her hockey stick over her head and pointing it like a sword, "LET'S FUCK SOME SHIT UP! WHO'S WITH ME!?"

And the gathered mini-mob roared in agreement, walking after her as she marched the crowd towards the end of the street. They parted to walk around the truck with the kettle drum, and the drummer just smiled and waved; she knew her place, she knew her role.

Soon there would be nothing but hate in every mind, nothing but bloodlust and a desire to rip and tear and destroy.

Soon.

And Alberta smiled happily.

It was so nice to have her people all on the same page for once.

* * *

Ontario peeked around the alleyway's corner, immediately ducking back in and scurrying to join Canada in huddling behind the filthy, reeking dumpster that even the city's homeless wouldn't go near.

"We're fucking surrounded. On all sides. We're not getting out of here." He whispered grimly, running his fingers through his hair. They were milling around, and the ones on that street all had guns. If they were found...

Ontario didn't want to know what would happen if they were found.

They'd driven from Shelly's home, and attempted to leave the city; Canada had suggested fleeing to Saskatchewan or BC, and Ontario had picked a direction and started driving, only for them to be turned around by a police officer who was stopping anyone with Alberta plates. He told them to get back into the city to help with the defence effort or he'd arrest them for treason; Ontario was just glad the man was too busy to run their plates or check their ID's. That had been the most terrifying ten minutes of his entire life.

Canada was massaging his temples, but he did acknowledge Ontario's statement with a token nod. He was trying to scan for Alberta and Calgary, but it wasn't working very well; they were both somewhere in the downtown core; that was all he could be certain of. Calgary could have been standing right next to him and Canada's sense wouldn't have told him that much- at least until he opened his eyes. There _were_ downsides to being the second-largest of them all.

They needed a plan. A plan to get the hell out and to survive this horrible ordeal, without getting dragged into the street and beaten to death by some hell's angels bikers, a few bankers, and some teens playing hooky. Since that seemed to be the main group comprising the gun mob- Ontario didn't want to know where the teenagers got those firearms, he really didn't.

"What's the plan?" He whispered to the nation, and Canada looked up at him, brow furrowed.

"The plan, is...Well...I really don't know." he whispered back, wincing as the crowd in the adjoining street started to scream, getting themselves psyched up for the battle ahead. Someone was yelling about gassing the parasites out, and someone else roared about hanging them- and soon the whole mob was yelling and screaming suggestions, the riot police with the mob banging their shields with their batons to stir them up even more. And Canada swallowed deeply.

"I...I think our only option...is to join them." He said quietly, "Join them and surrender to the coalition immediately...you still have your wallet on you, right?"

Ontario nodded. "Never leave home without it. I always have my ID."

The nation looked at the filthy ground, face solemn and serious.

"..We're going to have to play the part. We're going to need some hockey sticks or some weapons or SOMETHING of some kind...and we're going to need to join the mob as soon as they arrive. And then, we can...we can run across and surrender."

Canada whispered the words desperately, looking Ontario right in his brown eyes. Province and nation both knew exactly what it was that he was proposing. It was suicide, plain and simple.

But it was their only option.

Ontario reached up and undid his now-dirty red silk tie, carefully folding it up and slipping it into the pocket of his grey suit jacket. This he slipped off and tied, with the utmost care, around his waist, rolling up his sleeves and mussing up his hair.

"...I suppose we should wait for the coalition to arrive, then." He whispered, "Perhaps we can join a mob from the back-"

"HEY!" someone from the opposite end of the alley yelled, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU FUCKERS DOING IN THERE?! GET OUT HERE! WE GOT SOME ROACHES TO SQUASH!"

Ontario and Canada shared a look.

And Canada whispered, _"...We're screwed."_

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Things are heating up, aren't they?_

 _Don't worry, the crazy really comes out to play next chapter. :D_

 _Also, you know what's a good song? Counting Bodies Like Sheep, it's by A Perfect Circle. You should give it a listen, but like...not with the lights off. Hoo boy. I listen to some fucked-up shit when I write._

 _Anyway, delightfully pointless author diatribe aside, let me know what you think of this chapter, eh? Gives me that extra kick in the pants to write faster._


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter Twenty-Nine**

* * *

The pickup truck that trundled into the downtown core was clean and new, loaded down with a kettle drum in the back- a "donation" from a high school in Lethbridge. "Donation" here meaning "Taken by force by Prime Minister Jackson A. Slate or you're going to fucking jail, Mr. Music teacher". It was perfectly camouflaged, with tinted back windows- concealing the prime minister and his two RCMP guards sitting on either side of him. All three were in full combat gear, and Slate had demanded a frankly irresponsibly large machine gun for his weapon.

The driver was the brother of a local from Lethbridge, working under duress- he'd been visiting family in the town, intending to go back home to Calgary when he was done. He'd been personally press-ganged into service by Slate; the prime minister had threatened to have his family arrested or shot if he didn't comply.

"I hope you're aware of the fact that I'm gonna sell you out the minute you get out of my rig." The man said flatly as they trundled up to the police checkstop that had been set up on the otherwise-empty road. There was hate in his voice, and whenever he glanced back over his shoulder the look in his eyes was nothing but murder. He wanted to tell the cops what he had in the back and watch them shoot the PM and his two lackeys execution-style. They'd threatened his family, his mother and father and sister, and for that he wanted to watch the corrupt Minister burn at the stake.

He rolled down his window as soon as he'd pulled over, the officer in the squad car behind him running his plates as another walked up to his window. Slate quickly doffed his army helmet as another officer walked up to the front. The prime minister ducked his head, quickly tying a borrowed bandana around his face and looking back up. There. Now he was just another angry Albertan, ready to fuck some shit up. His guards had been wearing their bandanas and sunglasses since the truck had left Lethbridge, but Slate disliked the feel of fabric on his face; it made him feel like he was suffocating.

The officer smiled pleasantly at the driver, glancing back at the squad car behind the pickup truck- the other officer gave the thumbs up. The truck was clean, and Calgarian.

"So where'd you get that there drum, buddy?" he offered pleasantly as some other officers cleared the barricade that had been set up between the truck and the bridge, "Where were ya these last few days, eh?"

"Lethbridge." He replied flatly. "Visiting family. My sister plays timpani. I heard you needed them, so." He looked straight ahead, face hardened into an angry stone mask, a detail that did not escape the officer's notice.

"Who're those guys you got in the back?" he asked suspiciously, and Slate bit his lip. This was it. The moment of truth. The guard that sat behind the driver had a pistol out and carefully buried in the seat back- if the man squealed now, he'd pay with his life.

"...Friends." he said flatly, still staring ahead, "Wanted to help defend the city."

The officer squinted into the truck, looking right into Slate's eyes with something between suspicion- and strangely, a little smirk.

Like he knew something the PM didn't.

Slate ignored him, looking away as they waved the truck through, and the driver trundled along, grinding his teeth. He pulled the truck into the downtown core where Slate ordered him to go, the PM consulting the map on his phone, and finally parked it off to the side of the road next to a staircase that lead up into the +15 network.

The prime minister nodded at his men, and the three of them bailed on the truck without so much as a word, taking the steps two at a time. Slate fully expected it to be locked, so when the aboveground tunnel wasn't, it rather threw him for a loop. Still, the PM was more focused on the glory he was going to be showered in for pulling off this heroic coup over the crazy Calgarians and their corrupt commander, and couldn't force himself to care about the suspiciousness of that door being unlocked.

The man in the truck watched them run up the steps, and as soon as he was out of the range of the Guardsmen's guns, he stamped on the gas, scanning the empty street for any cops or any anyone. He needed to report this, right away. The PM was in the Plus Fifteens, and they needed to take him down.

* * *

 _I wanna cut him open. I want to cut him apart. I'm gonna fucking kill him._

 _Hee, and that'll be fun, won't it? Won't it? IT'LL BE FUN, RIGHT?!_ _ **RIGHT?!**_

 ** _FUCKER THINKS HE CAN RUN AROUND IN MY TOWN AND CALLS HIMSELF BOSS I'M GOING TO FUCKING RAPE HIS FUCKING CORPSE AND IMPALE IT ON A SPIKE HA HA HA HAAAAA_**

 ** _Will he scream? He'll cry. I want him to cry. But_** _not_ if I cry first. I'm gonna cry. It hurts. It hurts a lot. I feel so cold and empty and it hurts so much and everyone's so angry and I just want to go home I don't wanna be here I don't **_WANT THE FUCKER TO GET OUT OF HERE ALIVE HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA._**

 ** _I'm so_** ** _happy._**

* * *

Prime minister slate froze mid-stride.

The +15's were silent, and empty; and it was more than a little terrifying to be honest. The place was supposed to be bustling with life and energy, but instead, there was just…

Silence.

Silent halls. Silent, shuttered shops. Silence.

Except.

Except, except aside from himself and the two RCMP guards who'd insisted on accompanying him on his mission…he would hear…something else.

Something that sounded like laughter, sometimes. Someone laughing, and not in a nice way. A nervous grating cackle, or perhaps the arrogant laughter of a madman; it was always too distant, too faint to tell properly what it truly was. Other times he'd hear a faint sob, and then a few more, as if the ghost that stalked him through the aboveground maze was weeping for something. But then…then the ghostly voice would scream.

And it wasn't ghostly when it screamed.

But that sound he'd just heard, it wasn't…it wasn't voices. It was _footsteps._

 _Tak, tak, tak, tak…._

The maze was well-lit, as labyrinths go; huge panes of glass in all the +15's let in huge amounts of light, illuminating the empty maze the three men ran through. IF it was rattling his guards, Slate didn't know. They weren't letting on out of sheer professionalism.

The PM stopped in his tracks halfway across one of the bigger walkways, looking down at the street below. A huge mob of people were gathered, and in the distance- _were those artillery pieces?!_

He gulped.

"Sir, we shouldn't stay here. They can see us from the ground, and they might- GET DOWN!"

So saying, the guard tackled him to the carpet, just as a person on the street below chambered a round in their hunting rifle and pulled the trigger. The bullet whistled over Slate's head, right where his torso had been not a minute earlier. The tiny lead bullet shattered the windowpane into trillions of tiny fragments, showering the three in the tunnel with glass fragments- and letting them hear what was being said on the street.

"THERE'S SOME ROACHES IN THAT FUCKIN' WALKWAY!"

"FUCKING SHOOT THEM THEN!"

"I JUST TRIED, ASSHOLE! FUCKER KEEPS MOVING!"

The guards motioned for Slate to crawl after them, desperate to get into the next building where they'd be safe from the guns below. Windowpanes blew out, one after another after another, bang bang bang; glass rained down on the street below, the crowd screaming at the gunners to shoot straight and kill them already.

And then the shooting stopped.

It just…stopped.

The crowd below fell silent, and the PM took the opportunity to jump to his feet and run the last few steps into the next building.

Only when he was safe from being shot did the Prime minister turn around to look at what it was that had saved him.

His eyes went wide.

Slate took off like a shot, running flat-out through the carpeted halls as his two guards screamed in agony behind him.

And the madman laughed as the Minister ran.

* * *

 ** _See how he runs from me. See how he runs. Ha. Coward. Fool. ANIMAL._** ** _I_** ** _'LL SLAUGHTER HIM. BUTCHER HIM. TURN HIM INTO SLABS OF STEAK AND FRY HIM FOR SUPPER. FUCKER'S GONNA DIE TONIGHT._**

 ** _I'm going to have so much fun playing with you, Prime Minister, sir. You'll not get me. YOU WON'T GET ME. I KNOW WHAT YOU FUCKERS WANT. YOU FUCKERS WANT TO STICK COMPUTER PINS IN MY HEAD AND FILL MY BRAIN WITH YOUR LIES. WELL IT WON'T FUCKING WORK,_** _ **BECAUSE I'VE GOT A GUN AND A KNIFE AND I'LL FILL YOU ALL FULL OF BIG BLOODY HOLES SO YOU CAN'T POKE HOLES IN ME.**_ I'm gonna cry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry slate I'm so sorry human my head hurts and my heart hurts and I want to sleep. I want to go home and sleep. I want my brother. I want my little sister. I want a hug and I want to go to sleep and I want to cry I'm **_NO NO NO I'M NOT FUCKING SORRY YOU'LL BE FUCKING SORRY YOU EVER CAME ON MY TURF I'M GONNA KILL YOU SLATE I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU AND YOU'RE GONNA BEG ME FOR MERCY_**

 ** _WHY THE FUCK AM I CRYING!?_**

* * *

Slate yanked the machine gun off his back and jammed a clip in it, falling back on his military training. He let his panic and his screams and his desire to run for his life all take a backseat to the present need to kill the hostile. Nothing else could save him now. He was going to take the rogue city down, and just like that…well, it probably wouldn't kill everyone in the city, otherwise personifications would be encased in cement and never allowed to leave their houses. But it would probably do SOMETHING.

The problem was, Slate was lost. Horribly, horribly lost. And where he'd finally chosen to set up his offensive was an open plaza inside a building with at least three entrances. This was less than ideal, but it beat the shit out of standing in a glass walkway waiting to get shot from below.

Laughter echoed through the empty halls, and Slate dimly noted how this whole system read like a testament to faded glory and decadence. When it was new, this plaza must have been something spectacular; but ten years with no money to maintain it had diminished its splendour, scuffing the once-polished marble floors and staining the once-pristine walls. Dust and cobwebs grew on aging sculptures, with nobody to clean them; algae grew in the decorative fountain for want of a functional filter.

And then the madman himself stepped out of the walkway and into the plaza proper.

His eyes were bloodshot and his pupils dilated to pinpoints. His smile was far, FAR too wide, showing altogether too many teeth, and there was nothing but hatred and murder and death in that man's posture, in his face, but most of all in those cold, dead blue eyes.

It was like someone had extinguished the light that should have rightfully been behind them.

He, too, had a machine gun slung over his back, but he wasn't holding it- instead, he was holding a bloody knife in one hand and a pistol in the other- a silver revolver, which made Slate snort with derision. Really? The wannabe cowboy to the bitter end, right down to his choice in fucking firearms. His derision diminished somewhat when the madman pointed the revolver right at him. Slate opened his mouth to start talking- he WAS a politician, after all, and talking his way out of tight spots was his specialty- but the madman decided he wasn't in the mood for a political rally.

The City of Calgary pulled the revolver's trigger, once, twice; two warning shots that both struck Slate's helmet and made him yelp in sheer terror.

"Don't yap. Just run. You're boring me." The city purred, "And, uh...ya think you could scream a bit too? It's kinda creepy in here when it's just us two, eh?"

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _So tomorrow evening I get on a plane to go to university. I'll try to have the zenith up before then, but you never know._

 _Anyway, tell me your thoughts. Do it. I feed on your comments and turn them into storyyyyy._


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter Thirty**

* * *

Ontario gulped.

 _They were here._

Someone had handed him a spare baseball bat, and he clutched it like a sword; the officer behind Canada had handed him a riot baton, and they both had been pressed towards the middle of the mob.

But that wasn't the problem.

The problem was that this ragtag group of humans was headed up by an almost Amazonian blonde woman in a white cowboy hat. And Ontario knew of only one person that fit that description.

Alberta stood at the front of the mob, smiling sweetly and staring down the massing riot cops a few hundred meters down the empty street. Attacking now wasn't an option, though. They needed to wait for the signal. There was a plan in place, a carefully co-ordinated plan to ensure one of two outcomes: either the coalition left the city and the province with their tail between their collective legs and never returned, or alternatively, they surrendered, received a bit of…re-education for their trouble, and were welcomed with open arms by the people of Alberta.

The second option seemed more pleasant for all involved.

The sun was starting to sink in the sky, and the sun was in the eyes of the occupying armada. They were an identical row of uniformed men, like pawns or robots, really. The mob had fallen silent, spacing themselves out so as to be in an equally-intimidating set of rows. Soldiers and police were in uniform here and there among the masses, all of them waiting.

Waiting.

And then…it began.

A distant mallet struck the skin of a distant timpani, the dull BOOM echoing through the silent streets.

The drummer behind the mob raised up her stick and closed her eyes, waiting. The distant drum was struck again, and again, and again- three beats, three hits, and after a brief pause, it was struck again.

On the second beat, she joined that distant drum **; BOOM, BOOM,** pause.

 **BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.**

* * *

Pause.

And it was Alberta herself who first broke the silence.

 **BOOM.**

* * *

"Strong."

 **BOOM.**

* * *

"And."

 **BOOM.**

* * *

"Free."

Ontario glanced at Canada, confused. Were they expected to-

And then the mallet hit the drum again, and the crowd, as one, roared the first word of the chant in a mindless unison. The drummer beat her drum again, and Ontario joined in for the second and the third.

And then they paused again.

But the drums were in sync now; a few distant kettle drums had been a bit off the rhythm at first, as was only to be expected. And the pause was so short, so short as to be almost unnoticeable, only for them to start drumming again.

And the crowd chanted in time, hockey sticks and steel bats and metal pipes and rifle butts drummed into the ground in time with the beat. This seemed only to confuse the police, who decided to move forwards.

But the crowd didn't waver, and continued to chant, even as the beat of the drum sped up oh so slowly….

"STRONG. AND. FREE. STRONG. AND. FREE. STRONG. AND. FREE."

And to every word, a drumbeat.

Ontario chanted with the crowd, keeping his thoughts fixed on literally anything else as he did so. It was vital to not get sucked in to the mind-numbing, thought-erasing chant any way he could. It was almost hypnotic in its regularity, in its timing, and the drumbeat was the clincher. He started to recite to himself the methods of forging steel and the process by which it was done on an industrial scale; doing that and chanting along was impossible, so he simply hammered his weapon into the pavement in time with the drumbeat to play along with the crowd. The balance was a delicate one, and easily shattered by the man behind him casually elbowing him in the back. Ontario looked over his shoulder at the fellow- an employee of the Calgary Zoo, armed with a tranquilizer gun, if his uniform and weapon were anything to go by. The man snapped him out of his self-induced trance, whispering, _"Voice not working, buddy?"_

 _Strong and free_ _ **strong**_ _and_ _ **free**_ _strong and free_ _ **strong**_ _and_ _ **free**_ _strong and free-_

Ontario was chanting along too, trying to desperately maintain even a scrap of his free will. He chanted along like a common slave, a mindless animal; he chanted, but at the back of his mind was a quiet voice that rebelled and rejected and waited, patiently, for its chance to seize control. He would fling his weapon aside and surrender, tell them he wasn't part of the mob, tell them who he was, beg them to arrest him and take him far, FAR away. That was his only hope. That was his only salvation.

"Strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free…" he mumbled along, closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the human herd obeying the collective commands.

But it was so easy to slip. So easy to let the words enter his mind…

 _Basic oxygen steelmaking is a method of_ **STRONG** _primary steelmaking in which carbon-rich molten pig_ **AND** _iron is made into steel. Blowing oxygen through molten_ **FREE** _pig iron lowers the carbon content_ **STRONG** _of the alloy and changes_ **AND** _it into steel._ **FREE** _The process is known_ **STRONG** _as basic_ **AND** _due to_ **FREE** _the_ **STRONG** _chemical_ **AND** _nature_ **FREE** _of the strong and free strong and free strong and free strong and free strong and OH FUCK GOD PLEASE HELP ME strong and free strong and free strong and free…_

Ontario started to relax. Slowly, slowly, he relaxed; if he relaxed, they'd be less likely to notice him….right? But despite himself, he couldn't help but find the chanting….soothing. Relaxing. It washed his fear away, slowly, gently, each word eroding his resistance and making it harder and harder to keep reciting from the steelmaker's manual, harder and harder to fear the Calgarians standing beside him. They relaxed him as the coalition forces slowly crept upon them, slowly wore him down. There had been something in that frequency they'd played on the radio, something in it that had planted itself in his mind; it was a seed of something terrible, something that resisted even conscious knowledge of its presence. And as he started to chant along with the crowd, he started to…wonder.

"Strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free…"

Well…they had been spat on by the rest of the country of late, hadn't they? The Albertans were merely reacting to a decade of neglect, indifference, and arrogance from Ottawa. Perhaps their rage was…justified.

"Strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free…"

Perhaps the anger was…the correct course of action. He hated to consider it, but perhaps it was a logical and moral thing to do? Perhaps it was only the right way to be. Perhaps it was. Fighting against the ones oppressors was seen as a noble and heroic and courageous thing to do, after all. And with the lack of breaks on taxes and a hefty debt incurred by a prior government, coupled with interfering interference from the federal government under Prime Minister Slate and what some would call an unjustifiable attack on their province…

 _"_ _Strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free strong an' free…"_

Perhaps…it was only right to hate them. Hate them all. Perhaps it was only right to hate the coalition, the literal jackboot that Slate's government was wearing. Perhaps it was only right to hate them and what they represented…perhaps it was the only moral way to be, to speak, to **think.**

 _"_ _Strongan'freestrongan'freestrongan'freestrongan'freestrongan'freestrongan'freestrongan'free…"_

Yes. Yes, that was so true, wasn't it? There was nothing to these fucking inhuman animals staring them down from beneath their black riot masks, wasn't there? Robots. Uniformly produced animals, like…like cattle. _Yes._ And a disturbing smile crept onto Ontario's face, a smile to match the identical smiles worn by all those around him, the ones standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him; and he still wore it as the mob took its first, unanimous step, striding towards the enemy ranks.

 _"_ _Strongan'freestrongan'freestrongan'freestrongan'freestrongan'freestrongan'freestrongan'free…"_

Oh, this felt…this felt good. He was so powerful, wasn't he? Shoulder to shoulder with this...no, it wasn't a mob. They were an army, and together they would annihilate the fools that dared to oppose them. Crush them under THEIR jackboot, and make them all pay. He was going to help these people attain their freedom, he was going to help these people attain their freedom, he was going to be free going to be free going to be free and strong and strong and free strong and free strong and free **strong and free STRONG AND FREE STRONG AND FREE STRONG AND FREE STRONG AND FREE STRONG AND FREE**

Alberta screamed, "KILL THEM!"

And Ontario nearly cheered with joy. Yes, yes, yes, YES YES YES **KILL THEM KILL THEM KILL** **_THEM KILL THEM KILL THEM KILL THEM KILL THEM-_**

The army marched as one, marched to the endless, endless beat of the drum, the drumbeat that seemed to resonate in every fiber of Ontario's being, seemed to resonate in his mind and his blood and his legs and his soul. He was the drum. The drum that had eroded at his mind now encouraged him, filling his mind with animalistic rage and hate for the creatures in their black armour. The smiles got larger and angrier and more vicious as they bared their teeth, and he needed that drum, he NEEDED it. Needed it to act, needed it to think, needed it to attack them…

The mob marched as one at first, and then it started to break apart, fracturing as they all rushed at the enemy. But the hundreds of stampeding feet still found commonality; a shocking number still hit the pavement in time with the drum as they sprang at the enemy, and while it was true that many didn't, they timed their strides to be in sync with the endless drumbeat. To be in time with the words on their lips and in their minds, the words that endlessly, endlessly drove them on, whipping them into a murderous animal frenzy, their hate a fuel for a fire that no amount of water could ever hope to quell.

They hit up against the riot police, and the cops quickly realized they were out of their league. Dozens of hands grabbed their shields and tore them out of their grasp; a coordinated effort that more often than not resulted in the shield being used against them not seconds later. It was the complete opposite of mob psychology, and the tactics of the riot police had no effect on the hate-crazed, bloodthirsty people. They attacked as a collective, one individual thinking of a tactic on the fly and dozens of others joining in immediately, so that the officer's batons were more of an annoyance than a credible threat.

And they didn't seem to give up. Ever.

Ontario was one of the ones going in at a shield first, grabbing them and getting beat around the head for his trouble, but he just…couldn't let go. The cop landed blow after blow on him and he didn't relent, didn't let go, couldn't let go, strong and free, strong and free…

Each blow was an annoyance, a stinging pain on his arms and head that he ignored like the distraction it was, leering at the officer through their clear Plexiglas shield like the useless toy it was. He singlehandedly tore it away from the human, his sheer, overwhelming brute strength dwarfing the man's own. He was stronger than Alberta; stronger than all the provinces, and all his raw power was mere brainless muscle for someone else's fight.

Ontario roared, letting the bloodlust and hate flow through him and feeling almost high on it. It was intoxicating, better than any drug he'd ever had. No crash, no nosebleed, just the need to rip and tear and smash and destroy and it was so good, so _good_ , strong and free, strong and free, strong and free…

He raised up his bat like a club, like a sword, ready to smash the human's head into the pavement, ready to kill him in a single blow; he could distantly hear Alberta throwing punches and screaming like and inhuman animal herself and out of the corner of his eye he could see her literally throwing riot police bodily over-arm; the two of them were single-handedly turning the OPP's finest into cowards, fleeing from the mob for their very lives.

And then Ontario locked up.

His eyes went wide and he stared down at the human on the ground. The man's helmet had fallen off in the scuffle, and he had one arm up, eyes closed, bracing himself for the inevitable-

 _Rajpal Dev. Born in Thunder Bay, grew up there. Got a job with the OPP for the summer and decided to stay on. About to be promoted to Sergeant. Has two children at home and a wife…_

And Ontario locked up.

One of his.

One of his, one of his, one of his, ONE OF HIS, _ONE OF HIS,_ _ **ONE OF HIS**_ _-_

And the second mantra screamed over the chant, screamed louder than Ontario ever wanted to hear again. It screamed deafeningly loud, drowning out the chant, drowning out everything in his mind with the need to protect the human curled up before him.

He looked down at Rajpal, and for a fraction of an instant, his head broke the surface of the ocean of madness and he was able to whisper a single word.

" _Run."_

The human police officer scrambled to his feet and ran, leaving his helmet and shield behind in his desperate attempt to flee for his life.

Ontario roared in anger and conflicted frustration, letting his club smash into the shield-

And then there was a faint _PSST._

A pneumatic hiss from behind him-

The tranquilizer dart from the zookeeper's gun hit him square in the back of the neck, a perfectly placed shot. The dart's contents were something powerful for use on lions and the like, and Ontario instantly felt sleepy and weak. His club tumbled out of his fingertips, and he started to sway; little did he know that the dose on the dart was measured to kill the ones it hit, and had he not been a personification the tranq would have ended him.

The zookeeper came up behind him and whispered to him he sank to his knees.

 _"_ _We know who you are, parasite."_

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free Strong and Free_ _ **Reviews**_ _Strong and Free_ _ **Give**_ _Strong and Free_ _ **Me**_ _Strong and Free_ _ **Life**_ _Strong and Free…._


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter Thirty-One**

* * *

Parasites.

Fucking parasites, in his home.

Corvus snarled at the personifications, swanning about his home and swarming over their injured compatriot as he lay on the expensive leather couch, dripping his disgusting blood all over the premier's sumptuous carpet. He was deeply frustrated by this unfortunate turn of events; he was supposed to be brainwashing the farm boy and the hippie woman into unquestioning obedience and then getting them to deal with the French frog and the waste of space. Not running back and forth from the bathroom with supplies from his first-aid kit, the flatlander threatening to destroy something priceless if he failed to co-operate.

Corvus kept a small urn in an alcove of his living room, an urn that he cleaned and kept surrounded by flowers and other such things. There was a small portrait of his mother behind it; her will had requested she be cremated and buried, and he'd disobeyed it enough to keep a handful of her ashes for himself, burying the rest. It was too hard for him to let her go completely, and this way, he felt that she was always with him, even if the rest of her was buried in a cemetery in his hometown of Sydney. Cape Breton may have been far from Red Deer, but he hadn't left his mother behind.

Outside, the prairie winds were howling, howling from the west; a storm was rolling in off the distant mountains, threatening to rattle the small city from the inside out. Not that it mattered to him; the rain and possible snow wasn't the issue. The issue was that Saskatchewan had grabbed his mother's urn and threatened to smash it on the sidewalk if Corvus made any attempt to interfere with their plans, which included calling the authorities, alerting their neighbours, and not helping tend to Manitoba's wound.

He was going to enjoy breaking her twin, Alberta's opinions be damned. She could deal with it; the man had threatened Corvus's mother, and still held her precious urn in his filth-stained hands. It made the premier's skin crawl; he wanted to strap the fucking animal to his rack and make him scream for mercy, mercy that would never, ever, ever come; he'd threatened his mother and for that he would suffer as only an immortal could. Get the hot iron pokers and try that out. Perhaps lock him in that soundproof chamber he'd funded the construction of down at the University of Calgary… they even had a portable booth version, used ostensibly for training astronauts to resist the silence of space, but Corvus had commissioned it because he'd heard that locking a human being in such a booth for a few hours induced hallucinations and madness, and he was itching for a victim to test it out on.

The farmer would be nothing more than a shattered shell when he was done, a mindless drone obeying his every command and beyond the help of anyone; not even his twin would be able to undo the damage. Perhaps it would slowly heal over time, but then Corvus could simply strap him into the rack and rebreak him. He had always found it so fascinating, the myriad ways animals responded to pain; he also found their screams to be quite interesting, and rather…enjoyable, in a strange way. But oh, the _power;_ the dominance that torture afforded him…. that was what was sweetest of all. And subjecting _personifications_ to such torment? Delightful. An immortal being, who would outlive his pathetic human body a thousand times over, whose strength dwarfed his own by a factor of ten, reduced to a pleading, sobbing mess on his rack with nothing more than his words and a tool or toy of choice.

Corvus licked his lips, looking at the sorry scene before him with contempt. He carried a fresh load of gauze over to Quebec, who was basically bandaging up the wound and making sure Manitoba didn't move around too much; there wasn't much more they could do until it healed on its own. The only reason he was still upright was because the bullet had embedded itself in the bone of his rib, stopping it dead and breaking the vital support all at once.

Yes. He could see it very clearly in his mind's eye. _Saskatchewan's eyes green and soulless and empty, his head devoid of any thoughts besides the ones Corvus had stuffed inside; Corvus's thoughts, Corvus's will, Corvus's mind instead of his own. And his slave was holding a gun to the French one's head, or a knife to his throat; and then with the snap of his fingers, his drone pulled the trigger and-_

"HUMAN!"

Oh for fuck's sake. He was going to torture her too. She smelled like weed and her voice annoyed him. Then again, she was also too valuable to kill; the all-important access to the coast would be what his New Alberta would need to survive and thrive. But she kept calling him 'human' like he didn't have a name. That would be the first thing to go. He'd constructed that anechoic chamber for a reason; a soundproof room that had an average decibel rating of -6. Not as good as the chamber in Minnesota, but close enough for his purposes. Anechoic chambers had an interesting side effect- by depriving an individual of all the background sounds they would normally hear in their daily life, it would usually start to induce auditory hallucinations with astonishing rapidity, sometimes in as little as forty-five minutes. The effect would only be multiplied with restraints and a blindfold. Corvus thought it would be interesting to see the effects of the auditory and visual hallucinations on someone who abused marijuana recreationally. And if by some miracle her drug-addled mind enjoyed it, well, the rack was still right there and he still had an extensive collection of torture instruments, most of them confined to a locked and soundproofed chamber in his basement.

Oh, he couldn't wait to break them.

"Human! Get your ass into the study, would ya? Sasky wants to see you."

The farmer himself had been snooping around in Corvus's study the minute he'd arrived in the premier's house; looking for something, some hint, some cure for the madness that Corvus had induced in the people of Alberta. The heartbreaking truth was that there was no cure, Corvus thought with a nasty smirk. There was no cure and no hope of a cure. Brainwashing was hard to undo, especially of the sort that he had induced in them.

When he opened the door to his study, he found Saskatchewan hunched over his own personal computer, a pencil in his mouth and a hurricane of papers flung all across the floor and table and every exposed surface. He had made a small stack of relevant documents, and was staring blankly at the screen like it would somehow unlock itself- the man was far from a technophile, and the paper had appealed to him on a base level since it was easy for him to flip through. A century of doing things the old-fashioned way had left him with that predilection for paper.

He looked at Corvus suspiciously, narrowing his eyes and gesturing at the computer screen. There was no more to be said, especially since he had the precious urn in arm's reach and could easily overpower the premier and chokeslam him into the walls, floor, ceiling, or whatever he damn well pleased.

His demand was clear: Unlock the computer.

Well, that suited Corvus just fine. He leaned in and typed in his password- RexCorvidae. The laptop immediately opened where he'd left off, since it had simply been in sleep mode- and it seemed he'd been doing some video editing at the time, another little thing to show to the brainwashed masses. He wasn't too keen on making them worship him, but after re-reading his notes, he'd realized that after they were going to need something to latch onto. He hated to make Alberta into the next North Korea, at least from an ideological standpoint, but with how much hate he'd inspired in them, it was the only option that would keep the new nation from self-destructing.

He'd gone through _1984_ with a pack of sticky notes, marking passages with techniques that seemed appropriate for his use. The other thing he'd taken notes from was Nazi propaganda; but not on any of the contents, of course. Racism was nasty stuff, and he didn't want to divide Alberta's people along such foolish lines as skin colour. How pointless and stupid. It was just pigment in the skin; who cared how much of it you had, so long as you were capable of taking up arms and words against the enemy?

But it was hard to deny that their techniques were effective in brainwashing the masses. The internet had initially presented a problem, but Corvus had a secret weapon; his frequency.

He moused over to the 'play' icon and was about to click-

 _"_ _Click that button and your mother gets it."_

He was holding the urn up above his head, threatening to smash it open on the study's wooden floor. Corvus's only consolation was that the look in his eyes was two parts anger and one part pure, unadulterated _fear._

He snarled and stood up gingerly, letting the farmer have control of the computer. Saskatchewan sat down heavily and glared at him when he tried to leave, a clear indication that their business was not finished yet. He carefully closed out of Corvus's latest project- 4- and judiciously clicked "No" when it asked if he'd like to save the edits he'd made. Saskatchewan stared at Corvus's desktop- a picture of the harbour in his hometown- and shook his head.

"Okay, you sick fuck." He said quietly, "Tell me about the frequency. Tell me about it all."

Corvus just smirked. He sidled up to Saskatchewan and planted a hand on the man's shoulder, making the personification jump and jerk away from him. He enjoyed making the creature squirm; inhuman animal that he was. But at the very least, Corvus noted, at the very least the green-eyed personification wasn't a parasite.

Alberta's twin would be a valuable asset to him in future, as long as he could get him playing along with the plans.

"Well, what is it you want to know precisely?" Corvus asked sweetly, leaning against the desk. "Do you wish to know how to brainwash the fools that occupy the province you call home? Perhaps you wish to know of the mad but absolutely _brilliant_ neurosurgeon who helped me perfect it? Ah, Doctor Menger….The single most gifted doctor to ever be birthed in Canada. They let him keep his medical license in prison, you know. He's even allowed the use of an operating theater once a week to treat patients who can't be seen by anyone else- all the really messy and complex cases, the ones only he can sort out. And he's a good friend of mine….You know, his frat mates used to call him 'Doctor Mengele" because he kept failing his Ethics exam…."

Saskatchewan swallowed dryly, processing this new information. Oh, he'd heard of Doctor Menger, alright. Who the hell hadn't? The man was serving a life term for unethical experimentation on the homeless- the scariest thing of all was that, in court, the doctor that the prosecution had brought on to read his notes and testify based on that declared that Menger's research into reversing traumatic nerve damage was not only sound but most frightening of all, it would probably work if applied to other patients. Menger was a terrifying man, a brilliant doctor and a frightening researcher with no concept of an unethical experiment. When he'd taken the stand to testify on his own behalf, he'd made a deeply disturbing point- why were there limits on free enquiry, especially when there was so much to be gained from, as he said, "casting aside a paltry few lives of a paltry few sewer rats in the name of the greater good and medical advancement?"

That had been a disturbing case, and it had been front page news for untold months. It still made him shudder. And Corvus had a connection to him? That deeply unseated, deeply sick and twisted monster? Fuck, that was just terrifying.

"I…no. No, I need to know how…how it works." He said shortly, taking a deep, shuddering breath and forcing himself to stay calm.

Corvus grinned, showing all of his perfectly white teeth. Perhaps he'd lie, or perhaps…he'd tell the truth. He leaned in, clicking on a specific icon. Nothing seemed to happen, and Saskatchewan raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair.

"Answer the question, Corvus. And what the hell did you do-?"

"Nothing at all, my boy. Just asserting dominance of my computer is all I did." He winked. "And as for my frequency…well, simply put, it makes the human brain more…. _suggestible."_

The way he said the last word sent a shudder down Saskatchewan's spine. Unbeknownst to him, a hidden file had started to emanate from the computer's speakers, a soft, barely perceptible version of the frequency playing so quietly the province could barely notice it, as it was in the earliest of commercials. Useless for heavy-duty indoctrination, but decent for planting single suggestions that the person would intrinsically agree with.

"Alone, the frequency is…well, it's not _harmless,_ not particularly; continued exposure will have an effect that can last some hours after the initial exposure, and coupled with the other techniques, it proves quite effective in…eliminating resistance to my ideas and breeding obedience and hatred in the people. Chanting a mantra with hundreds of one's fellows is an excellent way to suppress questioning thoughts and promote a sense of community and shared purpose in the people of Alberta, all of whom would otherwise be too concerned with their own personal issues and petty squabbles to rise up and smash the shackles that bind them in slavery. And they are slaves; so much revenue drained from this dying province like parasites that simply will not let go. Wouldn't you agree that that's wrong, my boy? Wouldn't you? I simply don't feel that that's fair, that's all."

Saskatchewan nodded hesitantly. Well…that…certainly did sound true. And it was unfair. Perhaps the premier wasn't as crazy- no. No, he was as crazy as he'd thought. Fuck that. Jesus…and the techniques…they were slipping out of his reach, just barely, and it was hard to pin them down and force himself to think about them. What the fuck was wrong with him today?

"So using my techniques in combination creates the current situation, wherein everyone in Alberta wishes to kill you, rip your heart out, and mount your head on a pike in their front garden, Mister Saskatchewan. A regrettable if tragically necessary state of affairs, I'm sure you'll agree…"

Saskatchewan furrowed his brow as Corvus kept talking, and he realized something. It was a herculean effort to force himself to really listen to the premier's words- for some reason he found himself wanting to just let them wash over him and relax a bit, but…they were gentle, even. Coddling, and relaxing. And most importantly, the nuggets of truth were doled out and followed up by…. _suggestions._

Suggestions.

Suggestions, which meant…

He reached out and slammed Corvus's laptop closed, something which was a lot harder than that simple sentence made it sound. It felt like his arm had been remade in lead as he reached out and grasped the lid, slamming it down slowly and reluctantly…like he was fighting his own brain to let him do it.

The laptop slamming closed had another effect. It cut Corvus off mid-sentence as he rambled _-morally just to spare my life, after all, wouldn't you agree, mister Saskatchewan?-_ and the premier scowled, folding his arms as the computer entered sleep mode and the sound cut out.

"What the hell was that for?"

But it didn't matter. Suddenly Saskatchewan could actually think again, his head breaking the suffocating ocean of gentle suggestions that Corvus had submerged him in, and he realized something profound. The people of Alberta were trapped in their own minds by a spiralling web of hate and lies and propaganda…and all of it would blow away like dust in the wind if only they would rise up and think for themselves once more.

Or at least, that's what he sincerely hoped.

And a plan began to form in his mind, a plan to finally, finally bring this horrible conflict to an end without a single shot being fired.

But boy, Manny and Quebec were NOT gonna like it.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Wow, Dunno what came over me last time I posted a chapter. Also, you ever get that thing where there's this tune stuck in your head? Yeah, I got this damn drumbeat stuck in mine. Really annoying, and I keep wanting to start muttering some stupid chant in my classes... Either way, I'm at university now, and I'm officially out of province for the first time- I've been chipping away at this monster of a chapter between my classes and late at night, which is why it's taken such a long fucking time to get it out to you. Here's hoping the next one will be a bit speedier._

 _Anyway, thoughts on the latest chapter are greatly appreciated and encourage me to write more!_


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter Thirty-Two**

* * *

 _Hunt the human. Hunt the human, make him scream, make him cry. Fun, so much fun. Haven't had fun like this in years, ha ha ha HA HA HA HA_ _ **HA HA HA-**_

 _Oh, he's running down the hall. Ha. Human is stupid. Human doesn't know what I know, does he? I can feel his heartbeat. Can feel his thoughts. He is scared. I'll make him_ more _scared._

 _The glass tunnels are a deathtrap for him, and he is a target in his stupid green armour. They shoot him from the streets below, screaming at him to just drop dead as he runs across the once-pristine marble floors and scuffed and threadbare carpets of my innermost network. Pipes that carry my lifeblood. Commerce, industry, files and papers. But blood, blood, their blood is my blood and people people my people are in pain my people are in pain my people are in pain make the pain stop make the pain stop I don't want them to cry PLEASE STOP BEING SO ANGRY_

 _Anger is good. Anger feels so good. I feel so good so good I'm a monster I'm an animal I'll kill kill kill them all kill them all HA HA HA KILL THEM ALL BLOOD ALL OVER THE FLOOR ALL OVER MY HANDS ALL OVER MY FACE ALL OVER THE STREETS LET'S KILL THEM ALL SO THEY NEVER NEVER NEVER COME BACK ARMY IN MY CITY ARMY IN MY HEART ARMY ARMY ARMY MUST DIE DIE DIE KILL THEM ALL KILL THE INVADERS KILL THEM KILL THEM KILL THEM-_

 _The human is shooting at me, I think. He shoots where I was and not where I am. He's a fool, and a parasite and I can see the tears streaming down his face as he begs and pleads with me not to kill him not to kill him hee hee torture him TORTURE HIM HA HA HA TIE HIM TO A RACK HA HA HA MAKE HIM SCREAM HA HA HA I WANT TO FUCKING DIE I WANT TO FUCKING DIE I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I WANT TO FUCKING DIE AND MAKE THE PAIN STOP PLEASE GOD PLEASE LET ME DIE_

 _The rack will be good for him. Just as it was GOOD FOR ME. Yes. So good. So so so good good good bad Calgary bad bad bad you're bad you're wrong you're wrong wrong BAD BROKEN YOU'RE AN ANIMAL YOU'RE A MONSTER YOU WILL HURT THEM ALL IF YOU DON'T SURRENDER YOUR WILL STOP THEM HELP ME TICK TICK TICK TICK GEARS IN MY HEART GEARS IN MY HEAD I'M JUST A MACHINE I'M JUST A MACHINE PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE HELP ME PLEASE HELP ME PLEASE-_

 _I'm so close to him I could touch his helmet and he doesn't know. Backed up against a shop's shutter, unaware that I'm already in the shop from the back entrance to the tunnels. I know where he is. I know where he is at all times. I can hunt this man at my leisure. But perhaps there would be a greater prize for bringing him to Alberta…alive._

 _Oh, maybe I shan't kill him then. Then they can tie him to a rack and MAKE HIM SCREAM AND CRY AND BEG FOR MERCY PAIN PAIN PAIN NO NO NO NO PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN-_

 _Then they can make him understand how we think._

 _Yes._

 _Perhaps I'll subject the Prime Minister to a little Question Period of my own._

 _Ha ha ha. I made a joke. Ha ha ha._

 _How loud will he scream if I jump out and tackle him to the floor, I wonder?_

* * *

The police officer flew in a low arc, screaming and flailing his limbs as if that would somehow slow him down enough to stop him from crashing into several of his fellows and knocking them all over like human tenpins. Those remaining on their feet looked at the one who had flung the man with unbridled terror- most of them turned and fled, with only the bravest few drawing their guns and standing their guard.

Alberta just grinned and held up her pilfered riot shield, pulling her own gun off her back and smirking as the rubber bullets bounced harmlessly off the Plexiglas shield. The gun on her back was nothing like anything the cops would have ever faced before- It was a C7 Colt Canada machine gun, modified to be belt-fed instead of clip-fed. The belt of bullets was being kept in slim and lightweight backpack she had strapped on her back; and she had thousands of rounds on that belt. it must have weighed a good fifty pounds when it was full to the brim with ammunition, but that was absolutely nothing to her; she'd carried larger loads for longer periods of time, and this was hardly going to make a difference. But the most wonderfully twisted thing about the gun was the simple fact that it was Canadian-made. Canada had created this weapon and it was Canada who would feel the brunt of its power.

Between the gun and the impossible feats of strength, Alberta was unknowingly waging the sort of psychological warfare the riot cops themselves would have been proud of. The people marching behind her were chanting her name, because they knew who she was and what she was. They all knew, and it fit in with the endless, endless drumbeat that drove them all on and seemed to be driving her heartbeats themselves, three at a time, three at a time, three at a time…Three words, three syllables, three drumbeats, _Al-ber-ta, Al-ber-ta…._

The sight of a terrifyingly tall woman hefting a fully-grown man over her head with a single arm and taking out a dozen others with a single powerful throw was the kind of thing that riot control had nightmares about. She pulled the shield away for a fraction of a second as they reloaded, pointing the machine gun one-handed and pulling the trigger, spraying bullets over the heads of the aggressors. In the hands of a mortal human the recoil would have torn the gun from their hands and possibly their entire arm off; in the hands of this beast of a woman it was a viable tactic, at least for her purposes. Spray-and-pray crowd control at close quarters was all she cared about; these weren't soldiers and they didn't deserve to be treated as such. So her aim was about a country mile off, but it was irrelevant; the aim wasn't to kill the cops, but to get them to turn tail and flee.

And flee they did. There were merely riot cops, armed to face a mob of angry humans; they weren't armed for this kind of combat, but the soldiers in the back certainly were. But in the confusion, as the cops ran to the back and the soldiers attempted to swarm up to the front…that was when Alberta screamed at the mob that had been rapidly swarming up behind her.

"ATTACK!"

The crowds behind her heard the command and roared in unison, stamping their feet to the triple drumbeat and letting their collective madness reach new fevered heights. And as the first of the soldiers came to the front, weapons raised but not ready to fire, Alberta started shooting at them without fear or shame or remorse. And not a single shot was fired in the other direction, because even as her gun chewed through ammunition like only a fully-automatic weapon could, the crowd surged up behind her. The army was here for one reason and one reason only- they were here to deal with Gunnar's rogue troops, and they were _not_ here to pull another fucking Tiananmen Square.

There was also their orders to consider- Slate himself had ordered them all to not shoot unarmed civilians unless their lives were in immediate danger, and to remember that their weapons were vastly superior to the civilian arms the populace was carrying. They were here to deal with Gunnar, not with the people of Calgary; anyone with anything more powerful than a hunting rifle was to be considered a credible threat, but anyone with anything less than that was to be considered an unarmed civilian.

"TEAR GAS!" someone in the back of the human horde screamed, and for a fraction of a second the drumming ceased it was an ecstasy of fumbling, desperate hands searching for the equipment that would save them. Gas masks and goggles, bandannas and breathing masks; some people had come equipped with gas masks rated for nuclear fallout, while others had shown up with nothing more than a tightly tied bandanna and some swim goggles. The soldiers fumbled for their own equipment as the drumming resumed, each of the drummers having been issued a full-facial mask rated for things far more toxic than tear gas. Canisters fell from the sky as the police in the riot control vans started to fire back, and they hit the ground and bounced, trailing toxic smoke as they went.

 **"** **THROW 'EM BACK TAE SENDER!"** a man in the mob roared, a thick Irish accent on his words- and as a canister landed nearby, he pounced on it and flung it straight back at the police, roaring, " **JUST LIKE THAT! LIKE WE DID BACK IN BELFAST!"**

Soon canisters were being flung back at the cops, but that wasn't doing anything to dissipate the thick, choking smoke that was flooding the streets. Soldiers and police charged into the fray, expecting a broken and fragmented crowd desperately trying to flee in all directions. What they got was the same mindless mass of brainwashed humanity, artificial hatred so strong in their minds they couldn't help but stand their ground.

And the mob just kept advancing.

Several officers pinpointed the tall woman who seemed to be giving orders to all the others, and nodded at each other. This was known as "Snatch squad" tactics- using one or more officers to dash in, arrest, and subdue key leaders of a riot. The leader of the small squadron of five signaled with his hand and they all charged at the tall woman, her cowboy hat handily covering up the straps for the full-cover gas mask on her face. Ice blue eyes turned to look at them as they ran up to her, and it was then that they officers realized they may have made a crucial mistake.

The commander of the little snatch squad was battered out of the way by the barrel of Alberta's gun, smashing him aside like he wasn't even there; she ignored him completely, sending his body flying into a horde of soldiers and riot police like a living wrecking ball with a good deal more force than necessary. The other officers wisely retreated from her- it was a rout, a rout that would surely end in them getting shot. Alberta held up her machine gun again and let fly with another salvo of warning and not-so-warning shots. The bullets may have been effectively unlimited, but Gunnar had warned her about firing continuously- the metal would overheat and deform the barrel, and it could get very dangerous.

As Alberta chased the retreating wall of troops and riot police, she could faintly sense Canada's presence somewhere off to the left. There was an alleyway there, but he didn't seem to be making any effort to flee- for the life of her, she wasn't sure why, but it wasn't like it mattered at all. He could stay in that alley until they emerged from this battle victorious for all she cared.

It would be hilarious if he was hiding in a dumpster or something, though.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Here's another chapter of craziness for your reading pleasure. University's going good, and so's this whole 'being an adult' thing. Hopefully I can get this story wrapped up sometime before Christmas. I kinda rushed the end of it, but eh. It's fanfiction._

 _Anyway, let me know what your thoughts on this latest chapter are, and I promise things will be getting much more interesting from here on out._


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter Thirty-Three**

* * *

 _"NON MAIS ÇA VA PAS, NON? T'ES DEVENU COMPLÈTEMENT FOU?!"_

"Quebec-"

"NON, NON ET NON! MILLE FOIS NON ET NON! JE NE FERAI PAS PARTI DE ÇA! PAS PRESENTEMENT ET JAMAIS DE MA VIE ET TOI ET TA 'STIE DE SOEUR POUVEZ ALLER BRÛLER EN ENFER POUR TOUT CE QUE CELA ME FAIT! TROUVE UN AUTRE CONNARD POUR TON FOUTU PLAN A LA CON, ESPECE DE-... **_INBRED HICK!"_**

 **"** **QUEBEC!"**

The Frenchman fell silent, slightly startled. Manitoba was the one who had shouted his name the second time, and his voice had rattled the windowpanes with its fury. And from the withering glare he was getting, Quebec realized he may have made a mistake in his choice of words. He glanced over to Saskatchewan- and the farmer had gone very pale, the expression on his normally stern and expressionless face one of being deeply hurt by those words. The prairies as a whole despised the term; "Inbred hick" was the fastest way to make Alberta blow her stack, and generally left Saskatchewan flashbacking to some dark times in his life indeed.

Then Manitoba spoke.

"Écoute voir un peu et écoute-moi vraiment bien, espèce de taupe aveugle à la con. Si tu l'appelles comme ça encore une fois, _**putains je te jure que je t'égorgerai de mes propres mains.** "_ Manitoba growled at him, narrowing his eyes. He was still sprawled out on Corvus's couch, the faintest trickle of blood leaking out from his bandages- the bleeding had stopped for the most part, thanks to his superhuman healing abilities. Quebec was about to protest, terrified that Manitoba's threat was a tacit admission of support for Saskatchewan's frankly suicidal plan, only for the Metis to surprise him by rolling his head to look at his younger brother and shooting him the same withering glare.

"…With that said, I'd like to go on record and say that your plan is officially the STUPIDEST FUCKING THING I'VE EVER HEARD, SASKATCHEWAN. ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US ALL FUCKING KILLED!? NO, I MEAN IT, REALLY. BECAUSE FROM THE SOUND OF IT, YOUR PLAN INVOLVES _LITERALLY MARCHING QUEBEC AND I TO OUR FUCKING-"_

Manitoba stopped mid-sentence suddenly, face screwing up in agony as he started to violently cough; a hacking, crackling thing that was in no way shape or form even remotely healthy-sounding. He rolled his head to the side, hacking up a mouthful of gooey black blood mixed with saliva and coughing it onto Corvus's sumptuous carpet. He moaned in discomfort and frustration- he could feel the bullet moving around inside him, could feel the bone moving and setting itself back in its proper place- but it was so slow, so fucking slow, and the discomfort of feeling his insides sloshing around was part of the reason he was so crabby. On top of that, it was anyone's guess how the bullet would decide to come out- normally with chest wounds it migrated to the stomach and was ejected by vomiting or just coughing it up; but this one had embedded itself in his rib, and it could potentially exit the way a leg shot would- falling out the hole it entered while the flesh sealed up behind it. Either way, Manitoba was in for a rough night and he wasn't in the mood for suicidal, irresponsible, _stupid bullshit plans._

Which was all Saskatchewan seemed to be offering them. It was already a pretty harebrained idea to camp out in Corvus's fucking house to start with- the only reason they were even here was because _Corvus himself_ had suggested it from the backseat, adding that since he lived in Red Deer, Edmonton wouldn't be able to track them. And Quebec, in his panic, decided that that was probably a good idea since Manitoba had just gotten shot and he really just wanted to hide away in some place nobody had ever head of- and that Cerf Rouge place was certainly someplace he'd never heard of, and therefore just what the doctor had ordered.

In hindsight, the only apparent reason the corrupt premier had even offered up his house in the first place was because he was plotting to trap them all or something. "Or Something" being the operative phrase, because at that precise moment he was locked in a large dog crate BC had discovered in the basement and decided to use as an impromptu Naughty Premier Time-Out Box, with the assistance of a large padlock she'd found nearby. The man himself was therefore unable to comment on his actual motivations for allowing them into his home, and more importantly unable to overhear Saskatchewan's plans and take some kind of avoiding action.

Saskatchewan sighed in response.

"Manny, I know. I know better than anyone that it's stupid and it's dangerous, okay? But it's literally the only plan of action that we've got. And cut me some slack- I'm sticking my neck on the line here too, you know that-"

"LISTEN HERE, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" Manitoba screamed, face red and completely livid, "YOU WEREN'T IN THAT FUCKING CAGE SEEING WHAT HE WAS DOING TO CALGARY! YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO CORVUS FUCKING TORTURING HIM WITHIN AN INCH OF HIS FUCKING LIFE! DO YOU HAVE _ANY IDEA_ JUST HOW EASY IT WOULD BE FOR THEM TO BREAK YOU TOO?! AND THEN WHAT, DUMBASS? THEN ONCE YOU'RE JUST ANOTHER FUCKING MINDLESS SHEEP IN THE HERD, THEN WHAT HAPPENS TO QUEBEC AND I?!"

Saskatchewan took a deep breath.

"Then you'll die." He said flatly, "You'll both die, then you'll come back to life in Quebec City and Winnipeg and be far, far away from this fucking bullshit." There was a look in Saskatchewan's eyes that was more than a little frightening- a look of steely conviction, like he wasn't going to let anything get between him and his goal. And that goal was to save his sister, no matter the cost. His twin's mind was imprisoned by madness, a madness that would be incurable unless her people were also freed from their mental chains, too. But hate was a powerful drug, and Saskatchewan knew that what he was attempting would probably fail. But it was his only chance to save his sister.

Privately, he didn't have the heart to tell BC that she was probably going to get caught in the crossfire, like it or not. They, or more accurately Corvus, were hoping to take British Columbia with them when they separated, and that would mean he'd have to take BC with him. He didn't have the heart to tell her that she was probably going to be the first one on the chopping block. But then, he'd probably follow her- and there was still that one enormous flaw in his plan, the flaw that could potentially cause the whole thing to come undone.

What if they were forcibly subjected to Corvus's brainwashing, just to ensure their loyalty to the cause?

A thought occurred to the farmer as Manitoba continued to rant and scream. Corvus did all of his own video editing, and he…he had to listen to his own frequency all the time. For some reason, that man seemed to be immune to his own methods. That was an immunity that Saskatchewan was going to need himself, an immunity he was going to need to share.

"I need to talk to Corvus." He announced suddenly, cutting Manitoba off mid-sentence and interrupting the rest of his profanity-laden speech, turning on his heel and leaving the room.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _All translations are courtesy of my wonderful pal Aki. Thanks, sis!_

 _"NON MAIS ÇA VA PAS, NON? T'ES DEVENU COMPLÈTEMENT FOU?!"- According to Aki, this sadly doesn't translate very well, but the essential meaning can be encapsulated as "WTF NO". Her words, not mine._

 _"NON, NON ET NON! MILLE FOIS NON ET NON! JE NE FERAI PAS PARTI DE ÇA! PAS PRESENTEMENT ET JAMAIS DE MA VIE ET TOI ET TA 'STIE DE SOEUR POUVEZ ALLER BRÛLER EN ENFER POUR TOUT CE QUE CELA ME FAIT! TROUVE UN AUTRE CONNARD POUR TON FOUTU PLAN A LA CON, ESPECE DE-... **INBRED HICK!"**_

 _Please keep in mind that this is a loose translation of what I originally wrote, which is as follows: "NO! NO! NO A THOUSAND TIMES OVER! I'M HAVING NO PART OF THIS! NOT NOW, NOT EVER, AND YOU AND YOUR FUCKING SISTER CAN BURN IN HELL FOR ALL I CARE! FIND SOME OTHER SAP FOR YOUR FUCKING PLAN, YOU **INBRED HICK!"**_

 _"Écoute voir un peu et écoute-moi vraiment bien, espèce de taupe aveugle à la con. Si tu l'appelles comme ça encore une fois, **putains je te jure que je t'égorgerai de mes propres mains."**_

 _"You listen and you listen real good, you four-eyed fucker. Don't you EVER call him a hick ever again or so help me **I will fucking strangle you."**_

 _And that's about it for the translations! Wow, that's a lotta French. Aki gets all the credit, and she's the queen of translation from here on out. Someone please give her the crown._

 _Anyway, as always, let me know what you thought of this chapter, and next time we'll get back to them crazy Calgarians. Or perhaps we won't. Who knows?_


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter Thirty-Four**

* * *

Slate screamed in terror behind the gag that Calgary had roughly shoved in his mouth-a gag made of the city's own shirt sleeve. Without his gun, Slate had choked for a few crucial seconds, giving Calgary all the time he needed to strip him of his combat knife and put it to good use- namely, in cutting his own shirt sleeves off. He used one to gag the Prime Minister, tying up his wrists with the other and slinging the PM's gun over his own shoulder. Calgary stared down at him then, the too-wide smile seemingly frozen on his face as he cocked his head and pondered how best to transport the Prime Minister to Alberta. Marching him with a gun would spare Calgary some effort, but on the other hand, that would leave the PM free to flee the second they stepped out into the clouds of tear gas.

The Prime Minister continued to scream, and Calgary twitched.

 _I hate hate hate hate HATE this human, I hate him so much. Yap yap yap scream scream scream SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU_ _ **DISGUSTING ANIMAL**_ _. I'M GOING TO CUT YOUR FUCKING TONGUE OUT SO YOU CAN'T YAP TO ANYONE EVER AGAIN. I HATE YOU. I HATE HATE HATE_ _ **HATE YOU**_ _. You are a parasite, human. A_ _ **PARASITE.**_ _I should gas you out. I'M GONNA FUCKING GAS YOU OUT ON YOUR OWN FUMES, YOU FUCKING ANIMAL._

Calgary snarled and held up his revolver, firing a third shot into the floor a few feet from Slate's head, a wordless scream of rage escaping his lips. He was shaking, his aim was wavering, and he wanted to shoot the human's head full of fucking holes. It would feel so good to kill him, so good, so satisfying….quell the rage that tormented him, nipped at his thoughts, nipped at his soul and drove him into a frenzy of hate and anger. Their thoughts were his thoughts, their hate was his hate, and they hated this man cowering on the floor before him.

 _Kill him kill him kill him torture him make him scream make him cry make him SCREAM MAKE HIM SCREAM MAKE HIM FEAR ME MAKE HIM FEAR ME AND NEVER EVER COME BACK TO MY CITY MY LAND MY HEART THEY'RE IN MY HEART, THEY'RE IN MY HEART AND_ _ **ALL OF THEM WILL DIE**_

Calgary cocked the gun, chambering the fourth bullet. The barrel was shaking visibly, but not with fear or nerves or sleep deprivation- with hate.

" _Get up, you fucking shitstain."_

Slate scrambled to his feet, looking at the crazed personification before him in pure terror. His thoughts were only of his wife and his two sons- they were never going to see him again, he was sure of it. He was going to die here, by this psychopath's hands, and Corvus was going to laugh at his fucking corpse. But….what about his men?

 _Torture him hee hee hee hee TORTURE HIM HA HA HA HA TORTURE THE HUMAN TORTURE HIM HA HA HA HA HA oh it'll be so_ _**GOOD**_ _for you human so very_ _ **GOOD**_ _for you you need to_ _ **SUFFER**_ _to be remade to have your thoughts_ _ **CLEANSED**_ _of all that's BAD BAD BAD BAD CALGARY BAD HA HA HA LET'S MAKE THE HUMAN SCREAM LET'S MAKE HIM SCREAM I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HIM_ _ **LET'S MAKE HIM FUCKING SCREAM**_

Calgary's face split into a giddy smile, his cold, empty blue eyes shining with pure hate and malevolence, the gun levelled at Slate's face as he approached him slowly, step over step, each one echoing through the empty hallways. The guns on his back clanked together as he took the two short steps to bridge the distance; the twin machine guns crossed in an X over his shoulders. He put the revolver in Slate's face and stared straight into his eyes, giving the Prime Minister a good, long look into his own.

They were only a few steps from the wall, and Calgary shoved him backwards into it with a single hand planted on the human's chest. The blow sent him reeling, and he felt his back smack into the dirty marble, though thankfully not his head. The helmet had fallen off a long time ago, and Slate was just grateful he hadn't cracked his skull open. The madman closed the gap between them almost immediately, and this time he got right up in Slate's face, so close their noses were practically touching, that fucking lunatic smile still spread wide across his face.

The knife, the combat knife, Calgary raised it up, bringing it close to Slate's face, so close, so close he could see his own reflection in the gleaming metal. The silence was only broken by Slate's own terrified panting around the gag in his mouth as the madman slowly, carefully, turned the knife, the point directly at the Prime Minister's eye. Slate clamped his eyes shut, fully expecting to feel…whatever it is one felt when a knife plunged into your eye. Pain, probably. And screaming. And blood. And-

Then Calgary very carefully dragged the knife down the Prime Minister's cheek, a shallow gash that deepened just a tad- and Slate screeched in pain, his attempts to jerk away only fouling up the cut and intensifying the pain as it slid through his flesh, until finally Calgary was satisfied with his handiwork and pulled the knife away.

Slate realized something then, as the madman leaned in to whisper something into his ear. This man was a personification. A personification was an inhuman entity, in this case a city, given human attributes, or in Cal's case, fully rendered as a human being. It was a common assumption that that was how it worked, but…Slate realized something else. This man wasn't a personification of Calgary at that moment, so much as he was a personification of the people's anger, of their hatred and bloodlust. And he'd brought squadrons of good men into their city, unknowingly endangering all their lives in the process. What would the people do in the unlikely event that they won? What would they do to the survivors?

Slate's guilty musings were interrupted by a strange, alien sensation on the side of his face. It was warm…and…wet…was it blood? There was almost certainly blood pooling in the cut and sliding down his face, which would be both warm and….wet. He snapped his eyes open, and it was only then that he realized what was truly happening. The city was less than an inch away from him, his hot breath hitting Slate's cheek, and the prime minister wanted to scream. The warm and wet thing was slowly sliding UP his cheek, UP his face, and making the gash sting as it crept upwards….and that thing was the madman's _tongue._ Horror and revulsion and disgust welled up inside of him in a wave of nausea, and he had to choke back a horrified gag. The monster holding him prisoner, the monster who had bound him and pinned him to this wall and cut him with a knife just for the hell of it was running his tongue along the wound, _licking the blood off his face._

And Prime Minister Jackson Angus Slate screamed at the top of his lungs.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Hey guys! Gonna keep it short 'cause there ain't much to say, really._

 _As always, leave a review and let me know your thoughts. Your comments give me life and motivation to finish this beast._


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter Thirty-Five**

* * *

Ontario awoke slowly, swimming up from the depths of darkness back into the light of the waking world. Unbeknownst to him, the tranquilizer dart had straight-up killed him, or more accurately shoved him into that strange void between life and death that was the sole domain of the personifications of the world. It had slowed his heartbeat to the point where it had just stopped beating; repairing the damage was a tall order for even superhuman healing abilities, considering the extent of the repairs that were needed. This included scrubbing all the serum out of his bloodstream, which wasn't an easy task at the best of times, and being dead slowed the process to a crawl.

Ontario had no idea how long he'd been out. He blinked a few times as soon as his brain came back online, taking in the black nothingness of the place he was in. He wasn't dead, right? No, he couldn't be dead, because there were…there were chains, chains around his wrists and ankles, sunk deep into the walls. He took a deep, shaky breath, yanking on the short chain with all his strength and trying his damndest to dislodge it from the wall. Nothing. The chain's links rattled and creaked, but they did not give. Ontario slumped, taking a brief rest. If he kept pulling, perhaps…?

The chains were heavy, heavy steel, and Ontario's pulling and tugging did nothing more than make himself weary. Eventually he slumped against the cinderblock wall, sinking down and staring into the darkness. They'd made the chains to measure, and it was doubtlessly some rare and expensive alloy, mined and milled for the express purpose of holding him prisoner. Or perhaps that was just his paranoia talking. Regardless, the chains had the stench of Corvus's influence on them; no doubt he'd ordered the preparation of this holding cell, or at least that's what Ontario sincerely hoped.

His last few thoughts had been of Rajpal, the officer whom he'd nearly beaten to death with that baseball bat; but the simple act of attempting to harm one of his own seemed to have cleared the fog from his mind, lifting him out of the mire of hate that Corvus's frequency and the accompanying chant had all-too-easily instilled in his head. Ontario shuddered in revulsion and disgust- he felt...he felt _violated,_ intrinsically. They'd wormed into his mind and warped his thoughts to their will...it was disgusting that this was even happening at all. He'd only escaped because of the inborn, inbuilt code all personifications were forced to abide by; the first commandment being _thou shalt not harm thy own._ Without that...he'd just be another mindless slave in the human herd.

The province sat in the darkness for what felt like an eternity, trying not to think about the horror he'd just witnessed. He didn't know where he was, how big the cell was, and most crucially, how long it had been. He'd checked his pockets for his wallet, keys, or phone- all three turned up negative, proving he'd been strip-searched while he'd been unconscious. No hints were forthcoming from the emptiness about the state of the world outside his cell; for all he knew, everyone had died and he was the last one left alive in the whole damn city.

There was a harsh shriek of metal outside his cell after what felt like an eternity in the blackness, and a door swung open, flooding the room with light. After so much nothingness, the sudden brightness scorched Ontario's retinas, and he grunted in pain and surprise, shielding his eyes.

"-Put him in here." That was a woman's voice speaking, and Ontario forced one stinging eye open to see who "him" was.

He gasped in shock, eyes watering as they involuntarily flew wide open, and then slammed closed again in pain.

It was Canada.

Ontario had never seen a human being wearing more restraints at any point in his life, and he'd been in a few prisons in his time. The man was wearing old-style manacles that gleamed with the tell-tale shine of modern high-tensile-strength steel, and Canada had three pairs of them on- his arms were effectively welded together, to say nothing of the myriad of other pieces of metal they'd put on him, in an attempt to handicap him. A blindfold, and what appeared to be earplugs he flat-out couldn't remove completed the collection of restraints.

In short, the humans holding him prisoner were scared absolutely shitless of their nation.

And well they should be. The only thing stopping Canada from ripping his bindings to shreds and bludgeoning them all to death with the ends of the chains was the simple fact that they were still his people. Their minds were fogged with hate, but the deal hadn't been inked and signed, the land had yet to be freed, the constitution of the new nation yet to be drafted. And until the Albertans took all those steps, they were protected from Canada's wrath by the simple fact that he could not consciously, knowingly, willingly cause them harm. Normally this was a mutual relationship- the people would never dream of hurting him and him alone, everyone from a small child to a serial killer- but propaganda and hatred had inverted the normal paradigm, or at least half of it. Canada still couldn't hurt them any, but…well, they couldn't hurt him either, but they could certainly put him in chains and march him off to prison.

There was no telling whether or not Alberta would have the same inability to cause their nation harm.

The lights flicked on, and mercifully, they were high enough overhead for the light to not be nearly as painful as before. Ontario lowered his arm and looked at the humans marching Canada in next to him- and at the myriad of chains that only now could he see dangling out of the wall. The nation was flanked on either side by police officers with extremely large guns, and in the back...Two of those fucking Reformation Party members.

Ontario snarled at them, his gaze bouncing right off the armed and armoured police officers and straight onto the two Inner Party members in their fucking sea-green serge jackets, a mockery of the Mountie's uniform that Corvus had somehow gotten away with using for his own private little cult. One of them- a woman with black hair and green eyes- she smiled at him contemptuously, with a look on her face like she couldn't wait for the order to come down for him to be dragged out back and shot.

Now that the door was open, there was another faint detail that only now did Ontario notice. A faint sort of chanting, like an entire auditorium of people were all reciting the lines to a play at once; but he knew better than that. There was even a faint drumbeat to go with it- not enough to shake the building, but certainly enough for him to hear it, even through the thick cinderblock walls. And then all of a sudden, the chanting stopped; and Ontario couldn't help but shudder.

That wasn't a good sign.

He looked over as they chained Canada to the wall with him, the chains on the nation noticeably thicker than anything on Ontario himself. They'd even strapped something around his head, a restraint to keep his jaw shut so the man couldn't speak- strangely, they'd let Canada keep his glasses, tucking them into the pocket of his hoodie and replacing them with a blindfold. He was silent as the grave as they chained him in place, and Ontario tensed up, waiting impatiently for all the guards to leave. Canada would rip his way out of those chains, and then he'd free him too, right? Right?!

Only, one of the police officers split away from the group and walked over to Ontario, standing next to him- and pointing his loaded assault rifle at Ontario's head. He sucked in a terrified breath through his clenched teeth, eyes fixated on the gun's barrel that was being held right in front of his face.

The Reformation Party woman smiled at Ontario again, shooting him a nasty little wink and turning to look at Canada.

"Mister Canada!" she said in a disarmingly cheerful voice, "You'll be relieved to hear that you and your….accomplice...will be spared from the re-education we were planning for the both of you. Can't have enemies of the people being treated like part of the common rabble, now can we?" She said it so sweetly, so innocently, and as the other Reformation goon stepped silently out of the way, Ontario could see tears starting to prickle at the corners of Canada's eyes. He could only imagine what the nation was thinking, being trapped here in this- wait, _what was that about re-education?!_

"Now, I feel that we're being more than fair, allowing the both of you to stay together and not simply executing Mister Ontario for his crimes against the people of Alberta, but this is on the sole condition that you make no attempt to break your restraints or escape. If you attempt to escape this room, the Eastern _scum_ dies, am I making myself clear, Mister Canada?"

The way she said his name, the way she said the word _scum;_ Ontario shuddered fearfully. He had no idea what these people wanted with Canada, but with him? They wanted him _dead._ He'd come back, of course, but death was always a dicey affair and it was best avoided altogether…and there was another reason for him to be afraid. He was an immortal, an immortal who could not die, ever…so what if they chose to impale him on a spike and chain him in place? What if they chose to bury him alive? He'd die countless deaths over and over and over again, in a kind of agony the human mind wasn't equipped to process.

Canada slumped in his bindings, staring at the floor. The woman seemed to take pity on him then, stepping forwards and removing the thing they'd strapped around his head so he couldn't speak. For a moment, Ontario could almost make out the briefest flicker of concern in her eyes- and then it was gone, and she turned on her heel and walking towards the doors, taking the two guards with her.

The woman paused at the entrance, then, not even bothering to look back over her shoulder.

"Oh, I forgot to mention…Miss Alberta will see you shortly."

The door swung closed and clanged shut. They slammed the massive steel latch back into place, sealing province and nation inside to await their fate.

Then the lights cut out, plunging them into blackness once more.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Okay guys, gonna be honest here: I'm a little bit frustrated with the lack of feedback of late. I understand if you don't have anything to say and I'm certainly not going to hold chapters to ransom for reviews, because that's just crass, but hear me out. I'm in university now, and writing takes time. A lot of time. I don't wanna drop this fic, because it matters a lot to me, but one thing that really helps to keep my spirits up is feedback. It really brightens my day to see people engaging with my story, and nothing depresses me more than feeling like I'm shouting into the void._

 _So…if you could maybe take a minute to say something about the chapter- if you liked it, if you hated it-that'd really mean a lot to me. If there's stuff I need to fix, don't hesitate to tell me; and I do read your suggestions, meaning there's a good chance I'll incorporate them into my story to help flesh things out._

 _Take care, guys. Next chapter sometime soon._


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter Thirty-Six**

* * *

On a list of things Saskatchewan had never thought he'd ever do in his life, interrogating a prisoner locked in a large plastic dog crate was one of them, and certainly up there on the list. Corvus scowled out at him from the confines of the padlocked crate, looking for all the world like an angry cat stuck in a pipe. He wasn't a tall man by any means, but he was rather stout; it was a miracle he even had room to turn around in there. His suit was wrinkled, giving the enraged premier the appearance of an angry raven. The dingy basement lighting didn't help, and neither did the contents of the basement. While some people might keep a kayak or bikes or a workbench or whatever else in their basement, Corvus kept his collection of torture instruments, numerous safes (one of which appeared to be a gunsafe, judging by the Remington logo on it) and rows of shelving. There was also a workbench at the far end, and while it did have normal-seeming tools scattered about its surface, it also had a tiny cage that appeared to be for mice and a strange apparatus laid out on it- like someone has screwed tiny restraints to a wooden plank. To complicate the picture, around the plank was a selection of medical tools- mostly scalpels, and a tiny saw.

Saskatchewan liked to catch mice in traps and leave them on his fence posts for the ravens, and even he considered that unnecessarily cruel.

 ** _"_** ** _Get out."_** Corvus hissed, nursing his wounded pride and turning away from the province to face the inside of his crate. He'd been humiliated and beaten, and more importantly, he was fucking trapped in this goddamn thing like…like an animal. A dog. Alberta didn't need Saskatchewan and British Columbia by its side; they needed to invade both provinces and wipe them off the face of the fucking earth. Just Alberta West and Alberta East, that's all they'd be when he was done with them. The farmer and the hippie bitch? Well, they'd die. He hoped. He sincerely hoped that obliterating a province's legislature and shooting them in the head was all it took to kill them, but the fuckers were so resilient he'd probably have to pay off the US army to nuke them from orbit to be sure.

Saskatchewan sighed and crouched down so he could be on Corvus's level, carefully setting the urn containing his mother's ashes on the ground and letting go of it. He scooted back a little, showing the premier he wasn't trying to blackmail him or trick him.

"I'll put her back as soon as we're done talking." He promised truthfully, keeping his words calm and even. He needed Corvus to talk, and if the premier didn't want to sing, then they were all fucked.

"Fuck off." The normally-eloquent man had apparently decided he was sick of playing nice, and snarled, "I'm hungry, and thirsty, and I need to take a fucking piss. My back hurts, I'm crammed in a fucking DOG CRATE, **_AND YOU EXPECT ME TO COOPERATE WITH YOU IN ANY WAY?!"_**

Saskatchewan sucked in a breath between tightly clenched teeth. Oh, yeah. That…That would prove to be a problem. He needed Corvus to talk, but the man was in too foul a mood for reasoning to work, but…perhaps…

"…I want to join your cause." He said calmly, face a hardened stone mask that betrayed nothing; no truth, no lies, nothing. Only his twin could see through the pokerface Saskatchewan wore, and Corvus couldn't know his true intentions at all.

The premier turned around in his cage, looking at the province with a single skeptical eyebrow raised in disbelief.

"Bullshit." He replied, "You're lying. If you were truly interested in joining the cause, I wouldn't still be in this cage."

It was a hint, a hint to Saskatchewan to let the monster go. Which seemed an appallingly bad plan, until he realized that winning Corvus's trust could be an incredibly important and useful thing to have around. The other thing was that the premier mentioned having to pee, and well…he didn't want to have to deal with the consequences of that. So Saskatchewan sighed, pulling the padlock's keys out of his pocket and slotting them in the lock. With a simple 'click', Corvus was free. And unsurprisingly, he sprang out of the crate and hoofed it across the basement floor and up the stairs, intent on relieving himself and giving the farmer a moment to think about the best way to get the information out of him.

On the one hand, he was in the basement surrounded by torture instruments and even a prototype rack that seemed to be adjustable in size. On the other hand, he needed the human alive to allow his rough sketch of a plan to come to fruition…and also, not liable to order their deaths. So that left him one other option. His eyes fell on the urn containing Corvus's mother's ashes, and wondered to himself what kind of woman she'd been. Probably a good one, if he loved her that much, although it was just as likely that she could be a neo-Nazi.

But still, he did love her. And Saskatchewan's mouth twitched upwards in a half-smile. He knew how to extract the information from the premier without harming a hair on his head. His eyes fell on the rack of expensive-looking bottles of wine, whisky, and scotch, and he grinned evilly.

* * *

 _A short while later…_

"A toast to my health, b'y." Corvus smirked, lifting the glass and taking another swig of it, only to discover, much to his dismay, that he'd already drank the last of his scotch. He wasn't drunk to the point where he was slurring his words, but a noticeable change had befallen the cunning premier. For a start, he'd relaxed quite a bit, adopting a casual, chatty sort of demeanour. That hadn't helped with his mouthiness, but it was a start, at least. But the oddest thing, at least to Saskatchewan's ears, was the fact that Corvus suddenly had an accent. The premier had a noticeably Maritime lilt to his words, and it was not an easy sort of contrast to swallow. And while it made _sense_ that the man would have some sort of an accent based on his upbringing (a small coal-mining town in rural Cape Breton), it didn't make the contrast any less…jarring. Hearing the cute, folksy accent of the Maritime Provinces coming from the lips of a man who enjoyed cold-blooded torture...it was deeply disturbing.

The premier stared at the empty glass in mournful confusion for a few seconds before holding it up to Saskatchewan and shaking it expectantly, like an asshole diner who expects to be waited on hand and foot at a restaurant. And the farmer had no choice but to fill his glass again with the last of the fifteen-year-old scotch, watching as Corvus knocked back the hundred-dollar bottle like it was nothing. His last public audit had revealed he was as good as his word and hadn't been skimming off the public purse, not even a single penny. When he went travelling, he would dip into his own considerable bank account for use of a private jet and his hotel room, refusing to take the money set aside for travel expenses.

Still, there had to be SOMETHING shady going on with the man's money, considering he had a cupboard full of bottles just like that one, and yelled at Saskatchewan for daring to present him with beer.

"I'm so glad ye've come to yer senses and started servin' yer betters," Corvus said, taking a sip of the watered-down scotch on the rocks he'd just been poured. Saskatchewan decided to ignore the comment- it was an impressive feat that he'd even managed to get Corvus talking at all. As expected, Corvus had been remarkably reluctant to start drinking with what he perceived as parasites and lesser to himself; it was Quebec who'd initially broken the ice, sitting down at the table and carefully asking a few pointed questions about Corvus's mum, and then one for his own interests about the origin of the premier's name. That, strangely, was the straw that had broken the camel's back; Corvus had reached for the alcohol, and more specifically the special mixed drink that had been set on the table before him. Little did he know that Saskatchewan had prepared his first drink with some help from Quebec, very carefully spiking the mixed drink with rum and vodka until it was a potent cocktail that went down smooth as silk.

"Premier Corvus, sir?" The words rolled off Saskatchewan's tongue without the gag that normally would have accompanied them- the man had played straight into his hands, and now it was time to ask the pertinent questions. Quebec had gotten up and left a few minutes earlier to put on dinner; or so he said. The farmer didn't much care why Quebec had left, only that he had; the last thing either of them needed was Corvus deciding to sling shit at Francophones instead of spilling the information they needed to hear.

"Ah, me full title an' everythin'….Finally, ye've learned some respect! What's it yer in need of?" He smiled lazily, taking another sip of his scotch and putting the glass down to better look at the province in the eye. He'd swelled with the flattery,

"How is it that you're immune to your frequency, your Excellency?" The question was direct, wrapped in a small nugget of flattery; inflaming Corvus's ego seemed a sound idea for getting him to talk.

Corvus looked at him with a lopsided smirk.

"I've always…always been immune to it. I just am. I don't know how. An' before ye ask, I really only discovered the damn thing by accident anyway…"

"That…wait, you discovered it? Then why get Menger involved?"

The premier smiled wolfishly. He was still capable of being intimidating, even through the fog of alcohol, and he still projected an air of cocky confidence even while he was getting progressively more stoned.

"There's no cure, you know." Corvus slurred, sneering at him, "If that's why ye's askin' me aboot it. But since ye asked so nicely, I'll tell ya dis- Menger was involved because me frequency was pretty weak when I first found it out. He did all the research into it, he improved it, he made it what it is t'day. Good b'y, Menger is…"

Saskatchewan nodded, soaking in the information. Menger was a brilliant scientist, or so all the reports had said, so it only made sense that….wait.

Saskatchewan furrowed his brow and realized something. Menger would have had to work with the frequency all the time; add to that being around Corvus all day long, and you had a recipe for crazymaking. But Menger was a smart man; and Saskatchewan wondered if perhaps the mad doctor had developed a way to protect himself while working with Corvus's frequency. After all, it was what he himself would do; and Menger was a master of many disciplines related to the mind, from what the case had revealed. A man with his knowledge of how people's brains work would have easily been able to spot what a loose cannon Corvus potentially was….

"How did Menger protect himself from the frequency while working with it, Premier?"

Corvus shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "Beats me, b'y. He handed me a folder like this when the project was done, all his research notes an' shit; the whole thing was off the books, so he gave all the incriminatin' evidence to me for destruction…only, I never did get 'round to destroyin' it…"

Saskatchewan's eyes went wide. If there was any hope of his rescue plan coming to fruition, it would be hidden in Menger's notes.

"Where's the folder?" he asked Corvus, eyes wide.

"Why da fuck should I tells ya, b'y? You's gonna trot off to the police or…oh, wait. I fergot, the cops all serve me now. Ha, silly me. Fuck it, the folder's in my filing cabinet somewhere or other…Good luck getting' anythin' out of it, b'y. It's all medical bullshit, all the way through…I couldn't get a word out a' it."

Saskatchewan's nodded stoically, about three seconds from leaping out of his seat and punching the air in triumph, perhaps letting out an excited whoop like the 'Riders had just scored a touchdown. There was hope for immunization. There was hope. There was _hope._

He was going to save his sister, come hell or high water. He was going to free Alberta.

They were going to be free.

"SASK! GET OVER HERE!"

Manitoba's voice was loud and echoing, the fear in his words snapping Saskatchewan out of his victory and saving him from seriously embarrassing himself. As the prairie province got out of his chair to make a mad dash for the living room, Corvus rose from his seat more slowly, ambling over to the phone with the intent of ringing up Edmonton for assistance. They'd confiscated his cellphone and kept him away from most other forms of communication, with the possible exception of snail mail; but Corvus still had a land-line telephone in his house, and it was the one thing that hadn't been tampered with, or so he thought.

Corvus picked up the receiver and pressed it to his ear, only to quirk an eyebrow when he was greeted with dead silence as opposed to the dial tone.

"Looking for this?"

He looked up and scowled.

BC smirked, dangling the phone's cord between her thumb and forefinger and holding it high above her head, a fistful of other such cords stuffed in her hands. Corvus snarled, leaping at her in an attempt to grab one of the cords, only for BC to dodge him and hold them well out of his reach.

"I can't believe you've still got a land line, ya loser. Talk about retro. And speaking of the good old days, I reckon it's time for you to get stuffed in a crate again, eh?"

Corvus stopped flailing and looked up at her, terror in his eyes.

* * *

They'd turned on Corvus's TV, and Manitoba had taken it upon himself to flip through the various news channels, scanning for any possible clues as to the goings-on in the outside world. With his injury, it was really the only activity he could contribute to the group; but it was nonetheless important, even if he was essentially just sprawled on the couch watching TV. There was a real danger to this, because all the locals news stations were playing nothing but the frequency nonstop, even in the background of their other programming, which largely seemed to be automatic; the CTV Calgary news station was simply the static playing over a black screen with some white text asking viewers to please not adjust their set and change the channel until CTV was back online in their area. But it was on the foreign-broadcast BBC that Manny finally found what he sought, and he hammered the record button as soon as he'd found it.

" _…_ _Our BBC field reporter is currently on the scene broadcasting live images from what some are dubbing the Battle of Calgary. Things seem to be taking a turn for the worse as these riots are far more organized than initial reports had assumed. Information we have received from an anonymous source within the Coalition's forces state that Prime Minister Jackson Slate was responsible for drafting the battle plans being used here and is also responsible for accepting intel from an alleged defector who may have been a spy. We return to the scene, where- Oh good god, Craig! Craig, what's happening down there?!"_

Saskatchewan and Quebec arrived at roughly the same moment, which was to say, the minute the news footage cut to a live feed of what was going on in the street below. The picture quality wasn't very good at all; the cameraman was shouting in terror as a mob of people marched towards him in unison, all of them chanting three words over and over and over again, the madness in their eyes on display for the entire world to see.

"F- RUN! WE'RE FUCKED! FALL BACK! FALL BACK YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!" the reporter screamed at the few soldiers holding their ground nearby. One of them shouted at him to get behind them, which Craig did, and he immediately started babbling the second he was behind the small wall of protection afforded by the men.

"THEY-WE'RE OVERRUN!" he shouted shrilly, "THEY'RE MARCHING THEM AWAY IN HANDCUFFS! WE'RE ROUTED! I-"

And then the sound of grainy gunfire startled Craig, causing him to yelp in terror and run flat-out for anything resembling safety down the largely deserted street.

He turned around suddenly, and the camera, jittery though it was, showed the small handful of soldiers being absorbed into the mob; at the forefront, it was easy to see why. The shooting hadn't been at civilians; it had been at a line of Gunnar's rogue soldiers.

Craig screamed in terror, running away towards the setting sun, not even bothering to hold the camera up any more. The viewer could hear him panting as he ran, and then suddenly-

"OOF!"

Craig had apparently stopped watching where he was going, because the next thing they knew, he was tumbling to the ground, or more accurately the camera was. Someone caught it before it smashed on the pavement, and it turned, slowly, almost curiously in the new pair of hands that held it. The person slowly panned the camera up, letting out a little "Heh" of seeming amusement at the situation.

"Nice camera, ya limey fucker." The voice was definitely male, and definitely amused at the situation. He appeared to look at the logo plastered on the side of the camera, if the odd angle for a brief moment was any indication.

"Ooh, BBC, eh? Oh, and it's live? Am I on TV in the UK right now? Cool!" he sounded inordinately pleased with the turn of events- and then suddenly the camera whipped around to face a man in combat gear attempting to crawl away. The cameraman extended his other arm, which was clearly holding a machine gun, and he pointed it at the soldier.

"Get back here, you fucking _eastern scum."_ He hissed, and then…the man chuckled.

It was not a pleasant sound.

Craig had managed to climb to his feet again, and it was then that the anonymous cameraman shoved the expensive device back into the hands of its rightful owner, smiling for the camera as soon as it was turned on him.

The man grinned like a shark, white teeth the same colour as his cowboy hat, and in the living room, the three men collectively gasped.

 _Calgary had the Prime Minister._

"Listen here, Limey. I don't hate Limeys all that much, so here's some free advice. Get in your rig and head for the 'States, you got me? Oh, and one more thing…Tell all the animals in Ottawa they can choke on Calgary's fucking dick."

And then the feed went black.

Saskatchewan went very pale and looked at Manitoba, then Quebec.

"I…We're out of time."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Oh my god was this chapter ever a beast to write, help. But holy shit, we're getting there, guys. We're gonna get there._

 _I wanna just say that I have absolutely no intention of abandoning this fic, not after all the work I've put into it thus far. This fucked-up world is mine to share with you all; I'm gonna see it through to the end if it kills me. That said, if you want to help me out, leave me some feedback on the chapter! If you liked it, if you hated it, say whatever you feel about it._

 _Mid-terms next week. Probably not gonna have an update for awhile._


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter Thirty-Seven**

* * *

Calgary was a modern, cosmopolitan city, and well serviced (well, compared to the likes of Lagos or Bogota, say) with a _reasonably_ reliable and _somewhat_ robust transit system. At the heart of the transit system was the CTrain, an electric tram that ran all through town with the majority of stops concentrated in the downtown core. The CTrain was a handy thing; a cheap way to get to work and convenient transport for thousands of hate-crazed rebels from the suburbs to the downtown core all in one. But most importantly, it also featured a stop at a station that was labelled on the map as "Victoria Park-Stampede."

The traincar was one of the older ones still in service, Slate noted dimly. The pleather seats were soft to sit upon and made of that curious blue plastic from the eighties, and the fake tiling on the floor's car was…well, between the wear and tear on the traincar and the aesthetic choices, it rather dated the electric tram in the eyes of the Prime Minister, (himself a native of Toronto). He wasn't too familiar with the city, but his "escort" had taken it upon himself to play tour guide, suddenly relaxed and happy enough for some history lessons. Apparently the trains had been ordered specially for the 1988 winter Olympics that had of course been held in Calgary, hence their dated appearance. It would all have been very interesting if there hadn't been a gun pressed to his head the entire time Calgary was babbling.

Slate had noticed a small detail on the way into the last car on the train- there was a tiny pole in front of the door with a button you pressed to open the doors at the station when you needed to get off, and it was simply labelled _"Neuenhof."_ Product of Germany, apparently, a fact Calgary bragged about shamelessly as they stopped at yet another station and the traincars in front disgorged their contents onto the platforms.

"Fuckers at Bombardier couldn't be assed to meet a deadline, buncha lazy French bastards. Then again, you'd know all about being a lazy waste of space, money, time, effort, and oxygen, eh, Eastie?"

Eastie. Oh boy, now the man had a slur. This was going to be a delightful journey to their inevitable destination…wherever that might be. Slate cast his eyes around the silent cabin, sucking in a breath between clenched teeth. Police officers were accompanying a mere half-dozen other people, each of the paltry few handcuffed and gagged with whatever material seemed most convenient. Each was accompanied by a police officer with a weapon, sitting next to them in silence with their heads hung. One woman looked up, and their eyes met- she'd been crying, and he could see the tears running down her face. Slate smiled at her weakly, attempting to comfort her as best he could, only for those shocked brown eyes to fill with hate a second later as the woman recognized him from countless publicity photos and news broadcasts she'd seen- that everyone had seen.

The door on their car opened suddenly and unexpectedly, and to Slate's surprise, a woman was shoved onto the last car at gunpoint- she was weeping, in handcuffs and a gag so she couldn't speak. The officer doing the herding followed her on and nodded in Calgary's general direction, prompting the cowboy to respond with a cocky salute as the woman was prodded at gunpoint to an empty seat on the other end of the traincar. Slate shuddered in trepidation. This…they were doing this to their own people. Who…who was responsible for this? And more importantly, where was he being taken?

The prime minister looked out the window to perhaps gain a glimpse at his future- and he gasped. As the train rumbled out of the last station before the ominous "Victoria Park", he caught a glimpse of something through the gleaming skyscrapers that made his blood run cold.

A squadron of soldiers. His soldiers.

 _Being herded through the streets at gunpoint by a mob of police and civilians._

The brief glimpse of the future that he'd snatched painted a horrifying picture in the dying autumn light. A legion of green uniforms, heads bowed and arms cuffed behind them, their own weapons used against them to force their compliance as a jeering, screaming mob of animals taunted and tormented them. Some were missing helmets, some seemed to limp- some were clearly injured and forced to march, march to the train station, march to follow the Prime Minister and share in the doom that awaited him at the end of the line.

" _Next stop- Victoria Park-Stampede Station. Please take all your personal belongings and newspapers when leaving the train."_

The automated recording played, and Slate's blood was running through his veins like icy slush. He was going to die, but that wasn't important. His life…his life didn't matter anymore.

Their lives…the lives of the police, the soldiers, the men he'd brought in to quell what he assumed was little more than a pack of FLQ wannabes stirring up more trouble than they truly were worth…Their lives were in danger. Fathers. Husbands. Sons. Mothers. Wives. Daughters. Dozens of lives, all linked to a thousand more apiece, a mass of innocent humans spanning the breadth of the country. And they were being marched, marched to the slaughter like cattle, and it was all his fault.

The train pulled to a halt at the station, the cheerful red livery of the station's façade doing nothing to distract Slate from the crushing weight of the men he'd just put in danger. No, the men and women he'd just…killed.

He'd killed them.

He'd killed them all.

"Alright, fucker, let's get moving. This here's our stop." Calgary's voice was cruel and sardonic, a nasty smile on his face as he jabbed Slate in the back with his own machine gun. Slate rose to his feet and walked off the train slowly, feeling the weight of hundreds on his shoulders. He was silent as he stepped onto the concrete platform, a fact that didn't escape Calgary's notice. The city scowled momentarily, annoyed that his captive wasn't screaming for mercy or crying or whatever it was a Prime Minister was supposed to do when they were being marched to their deaths.

So Calgary smacked the pensive Minister with the butt of his own gun, snarling out a single command that reverberated up and down the platform:

 _"_ _Walk."_

Slate trembled as he walked away from the yellow line inset into the concrete, towards the ramp that would take them up and into the Stampede grounds.

* * *

Calgary was holding the fucking door open for him, Slate noted with a hint of hysterical mirth. He was holding the fucking door open for him, keeping his gun trained on the PM the whole time. Slate wasn't even in a position to bolt- the officers standing behind him made certain that escaping the Calgarian's clutches was all but impossible.

The Big Four building was an impressive and imposing space, with multiple peaked roofs which all came to a point with a flagstaff on each one. Normally the massive space proudly flew the provincial and territorial flags of Canada; normally. All that was left flapping on those poles on that particular day, however, was twelve torn banners and a single blue flag flapping defiantly in the breeze. And they weren't the only flags that had been taken down on the Stampede grounds. There was a massive flagstaff on the opposite end of the empty concrete oasis, which normally flew a behemoth of a maple leaf, the proud red and white flapping in the sun come rain or shine. Today, however, the Canadian flag wasn't flying from that pole. In its place was a far smaller flag of Alberta; yet it was still huge by all accounts, and it lorded proudly over the land below it, seemingly smirking at Slate as he stepped through the glass doors and into the hell that waited beyond.

The first thing he noticed as the glass doors swung closed behind him was the drumming.

Constant, endless drumming, reverberating through the building, flowing from the tremendously large exhibition hall just up the stairs from where he stood. The dying daylight that streamed into the building from the windows above seemed to terminate at the top of the stairs, the room beyond plunged into total darkness. Slate looked up those steps, his eyes narrowing at the people stationed there. Not police. Not even soldiers.

Corvus's green-garbed Reformationists, smiling down at him with a coldness in their eyes. Two of them, to be precise; a man and a woman, both clutching handguns and looking quite pleased. Still, the one thing he could console himself with was the fact that Calgary, as crazy as he was, didn't seem to want anything to do with them either. He'd tensed up at the sight of them, the jovial smile on his face dripping away to a neutral expression that just screamed a desire to get this tiresome chore over with and get out of there.

Slate took the steps slowly, one at a time, and as he did, Calgary walked behind him, just as slowly, just as hesitantly. The drumming was getting louder, and Slate swallowed nervously. Those drums…those drums had driven them all insane. The hypnotic thumping reverberated through the glass, slowly starting to seep into his bones. Three beats, pause, three beats, pause. He unconsciously started to take the stairs in time with the intensifying rhythm, and in the deathly silence of the hall, he faintly heard the city's footsteps falling into the same rhythm. But his thought were still his own. At least for the moment.

They were at the top of the stairs much faster than Slate would have liked, and the Reformationists didn't even say a single word. They just opened the door and shoved Slate inside the darkened hall, each one planting a hand on each of Slate's shoulders as a nervous Calgary took his first step inside. And as the glass door swung closed and locked behind him, Slate swallowed. He was sealed inside Orwell's worst nightmare.

The hall was massive, and darkened, but it was fairly easy to make out dozens and dozens of people, arranged in rows in front of a massive image that was being projected onto the far wall. The drumbeat reverberated through the room, as did the faint buzz of Corvus's static, which Slate could feel as a faint tug on his mind, a gentle undercurrent that amplified the drumbeat and made it much harder to resist letting his thoughts and breathing and heartbeat fall into the drum's endless rhythm.

But it was what the people were doing that send a cold shudder down his spine.

The crowd was seated in rows of chairs, seemingly cuffed in place- the presence of cinderblocks with chains quite literally cemented in their holes rather helpfully explained why nobody had tried to run, as did the dozens of armed Reformation Party members patrolling the perimeter and making sure nobody was having any thoughts of escape, or perhaps just any thoughts at all.

 ** _"_** ** _Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free..."_**

The crowd chanted in a mindless unison, men and women, young and old, all of them transfixed in place by their literal chains and their slowly intensifying mental ones. The screen to which all eyes were drawn was simply showing propaganda, the words oozing onto the black or white background in a simple and eye-catching manner that was quite simple to watch without one's eyes growing fatigued. The crowd chanted in time with the drum, a mindless monotone, over and over and over and over and strong and free and strong and free and-

"Strong an' free strong an' free strong an'- _oh fuck."_ Slate managed to catch himself as he was teetering on the precipice of madness, struggling against the words that seemed to want to wash away all his worries and fears and cares. They wore at his resistance, and the frequency's endless hum didn't help with the fighting. Slate clenched his jaw shut, closing his eyes and struggling against the words that seemed to engrave themselves in his mind.

 _If you let them take your mind,_ _ **your men will all die.**_

The thought slipped out desperately, squeaking out between the words of the chant with a ferocity Slate had thought himself incapable of. No. No, he needed…he needed to fight this. He needed to fight it, to fight the trance it seemed so easy to slip into…The trance that Calgary himself had slid into, if the quick glance over his shoulder was anything to go by. The creases of worry crinkling his face had smoothed out, and he was chanting along with his people. The light being projected at the wall reflected off blue eyes that were glassy and blank, the storm of angry thoughts that had swamped his mind subsumed by the endless drumming and endless chanting.

The chanting ceased suddenly, though the drumming went on, and Slate cracked open an eye to look. A man had stepped up onto a platform, taking his stand behind a crude lectern with a microphone. The void that their voices had left was suddenly and swiftly filled, as the man started to speak.

 ** _"_** ** _YOU ARE PARASITES, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!"_**

Out of the corner of his eye, Slate noticed something.

At the sound of the word "parasite", a man in the chair at the end of his row seemed to visibly recoil. He was dressed rather strangely, the glint of a winged badge on his lapel betraying his position immediately to the trained eye of a former soldier. He was a pilot. A civilian pilot, to be sure, but a pilot nonetheless. Which raised a question in the Prime Minister's mind- why the hell was he here, dressed in a pilot's uniform? The people in this room wore whatever clothes they'd been wearing at the time of their arrest…so why a pilot's uniform? Had he been trying to escape from the airport? The question was an enormous help to him in struggling against the drum and the frequency, letting him tune out the horrible words being spewed from the speaker's mouth for a few precious seconds.

 ** _"…_** ** _YOUR CRIMES WILL BE FORGIVEN, BUT ON THE CONDITION THAT YOU LET THE TRUTH INTO YOUR HEARTS AND MINDS AND PURGE YOUR THOUGHTS OF ALL THE LIES THAT HAVE BEEN SEEDED IN THERE BY THOSE FUCKING ANIMALS TO THE EAST! YOU ARE NOT PARASITES, BUT THEY ARE; THEY WANT TO KEEP YOU IN YOUR MENTAL CHAINS, KEEP YOU SUBSERVIENT TO THEM, KEEP YOU QUIET AND PACIFIED AND ENSLAVED TO THEIR WILL!"_**

Slate shuddered as the crowd roared in a rage, casting his eyes away from the sordid scene to something, anything else at all. The distraction was provided by Calgary nodding at the two Party members who were holding the Prime Minister hostage; that small gesture of assent done, he turned on his heel to leave. He breezed out the glass doors, pulling out his phone as he went. Slate watched him go, watched the door swing closed behind him, and wished he could do the same.

The Reformationists marched him to an available chair at the back of the auditorium and engaged in a routine it seemed they'd done a thousand times before. One of them pressed the handgun to his forehead with a bored expression on his face while the other carefully unlocked his handcuffs. Slate was made to sit, his knees bending with the greatest of reluctance as the propaganda droned on in the background. And as soon as he was seated, his hands were slotted through the enormous hole in the chair's back and manacles were clamped around them, restraining him to his chair and leaving him unable to move.

As an extra measure, he felt something press into his ankle, and realized dimly that he'd just had a crude ball-and chain strapped to his leg. The chain was a heavy steel that took a lot of force to move, and it was set in a pair of cinderblocks, threaded through the holes and cemented in place with a hearty heaping of concrete that had been allowed to set. And as a final precaution, the two guards took a seat on either side of the PM, both of them keeping their weapons at the ready.

Slate gulped. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep up the resistance…and lives hung in the balance. If he fell now…

 ** _"_** ** _SURRENDER YOUR RESISTANCE TO THE TRUTH! THE LIES THAT YOU CLING TO ARE A STAIN THAT WE WILL WASH OUT, TOGETHER! SURRENDER YOUR RESISTANCE, AND LET THE TRUTH FILL YOUR MINDS! PARASITES ARE DRAINING US DRY, THE FRENCH AND THE FUCKERS FROM TORONTO AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN. THERE IS NO SALVATION FOR THOSE VAMPIRES; THEY ARE NOTHING MORE THAN ANIMALS; DUMB, USELESS BEASTS. YOU ARE NOT PARASITES, MY FRIENDS! BUT THEY SEEK TO MAKE YOU INTO PARASITES JUST LIKE THEM…"_**

And the drummer just kept on pounding, pounding, pounding at that fucking drum, washing away at his mind, washing away at his soul and his resistance-

Slate screamed in his mind, fighting back against the forces that assailed him, the image of his men in chains at the forefront of his thoughts. It was a battle, an exhausting struggle, desperately trying to keep the words from soaking in while still fighting for his men. Because he needed to stay sane to negotiate for their freedom, using the only bargaining chip he had left. But keeping that chip wasn't going to be an easy fight.

And as the speech ended and the chanting resumed, Slate closed his eyes tightly.

 _You fuckers aren't gonna get me._

* * *

In the cool air of the stairwell, away from the speaker's screaming and the drum's endless pounding, Calgary was finally able to breathe normally again. His eyes were still empty and glassy, thoughts still locked on the endless drumbeat, but he was able to think for himself again- a little.

He dialed Alberta's number, holding the phone up to his ear. This was supposed to be a jubilant announcement of victory, but for some reason, he couldn't find it in himself to express so much as excitement. The phone rang and rang, but finally it connected on the fifth, and the city's patience was rewarded with a rather irate voice snapping, "Hello?"

"Alberta? You need to come to the Big Four building."

The faint hint of a smile crept onto Calgary's face as he said those words, a ghost of an expression that only intensified with his next few words, delivered in that same even monotone before Alberta herself could speak.

"The Prime Minister is currently in our custody, and enjoying some…. _Western Hospitality."_

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Wow, that was a battle to write. Hope you enjoyed that chapter, because things are gonna unfold pretty quickly from here. I might go back and edit our earlier chapters, but then I also might not. Hard to say what I'll have time for in uni._

 _Regardless, if you loved it or if you hated it, leave a review and let me know your thoughts! Feedback keeps me going, guys. You want more story faster, say stuff. Simple as that._

 _Next chapter whenever my wrists stop being stupid._


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter Thirty-Eight**

* * *

The setting sun was touching at the tips of the mighty Rocky Mountains, bathing the city in a chilling orange light. It should have been beautiful, it should have been peaceful; instead it was a nightmare. As the dying daylight reflected off the mammoth skyscrapers, the steel and glass beaming blindingly, the streets below echoed with another sound. The sounds of jeering and hatred, of a bloodthirsty mob screaming in victory at their prisoners. And below that sound, as the pigeons flew about, blissfully unaware of the goings-on about them, below that sound was the sound of thousands of feet marching along the city streets in time with the drums, endlessly drumming on. The battle was won but the war still went on, so the drumbeats would continue until night had truly fallen on the city of Calgary.

The soldiers and riot police had been stripped of weapons, shields, wands, and helmets; many were bound with their own handcuffs, just to compound the humiliation. They were forced to march by the human walls hemming them in, forced to march with heads hung low in fear and shame. Looking up or trying to speak or beg for mercy was what had gotten one man on the end dragged into the mob and soundly whipped back into line, blood still dripping from the slash someone had inflicted with a switchblade to his cheek. They knew not of their destination, only that they'd been overwhelmed completely. Men would be grabbed by the converging mobs, one or two at a time, and systematically beaten, stripped of weapons, and then bound and thrown back into a circle of Gunnar's soldiers, all waiting in the wings to escort their new prisoners of war to…wherever they were being taken. The tactic was remarkably effective, whittling away at the morale of the coalition and slowly chipping away at their numbers, and with dozens of mobs and thousands of hate-crazed people, the effects were felt far swifter than anyone could have expected. This was no mere riot and these were no mere rioters. Every one that fell would get back up if only they were able, crawling back towards the forces trying desperately to supress them while still chanting, chanting, endlessly chanting.

It was like something out of a horror movie. A crowd would be sprayed with water, causing them to disperse- to the edges of the canon's spray, waiting patiently for the tanker truck's supply to be depleted. Then they would surge in again for another attack, chanting those same three words until the police and soldiers felt like those words would be ingrained in their very souls for the rest of their lives. They were impossible to suppress, hate and rage contorting the human horde into a collective monster that would not surrender until every last one of them had been shot dead in the face. Every time an officer glanced up to see where they were being lead, the head would duck down again almost an instant later; the looks of hatred and twisted, terrifying joy on those faces was enough to make any sane human sick.

And at the front of the procession, leading the march through the streets, was that damn woman who'd been throwing them about like toys, breaking their ranks and causing some of their men to flee in terror.

Alberta was grinning from ear to ear. She hadn't felt this good in a decade…or ever, really. Everyone was all in agreement for the first time in her relatively short life; Edmonton, Calgary, the people, and everyone was revelling in the glory of victory. The synchrony was infectious, and she had a stupid smile plastered on her face, wanting to start laughing and singing as they lead the grim procession through the streets towards the Stampede grounds. They weren't going to execute these men and women; that would be barbaric. Far from it, in fact. They were simply going to re-educate them all, and then "deport" them back to whence they came, so that nobody would ever try to keep her people from their ambitions ever again. It was going to be perfect, it was going to be wonderful, it was going to be-

And then her fucking phone had to go and start buzzing, and she sighed, falling out of line and ducking into an abandoned alleyway to take the call. Alberta held the phone up to her ear and growled a bit in annoyance.

"Hello?" she snapped irately.

"Alberta? You need to come to the Big Four building." That voice was Calgary's, unmistakeably. He sounded a bit funny, though- like his spirit had been blunted or something to that effect, delivering the words in something disturbingly close to a monotone.

Alberta opened her mouth to speak, only for Calgary to cut her off, which only added to her annoyance.

"The Prime Minister is currently in our custody, and enjoying some…. _Western Hospitality."_

Her eyes went wide. He sounded a bit smug there, which was almost certainly a bad bad thing for all involved; Alberta growled and ground her teeth. She had a pretty good idea what they were doing to the Parasite Minister, and that couldn't be allowed to continue.

"You better not be re-educating the bastard, Cal. He doesn't fucking deserve that. I'm on my way, and if he's not sitting in a cold dark cell, FAR away from that hall, I'm gonna jam my boot up your ass so far it comes out your nose, am I clear?"

The line went silent for a half-second as the city tried to process this new information, the end result being a large volume of panicked spluttering as Calgary hustled away to correct his mistake.

"Good. I'm glad we're on the same page." Alberta said coldly, hanging up and eyeing a sky-blue motorcycle someone had parked in the middle of the alleyway. Now that would certainly get her to the Big Four before the crowds arrived…

She smirked and strode towards it.

It was good to be the queen.

* * *

Calgary smiled at Slate menacingly as he clamped a shackle around the PM's ankle.

"You're gonna wish you'd never been born as soon as big sis gets here, fucker." He whispered, reaching up to pull off the blindfold that they'd tied tightly around Slate's eyes. The less he knew about where he was being held, the better. That done, Calgary straightened up, twirling his revolver cockily and putting it back in its holster. Canada and Ontario were looking at him with expressions of both contempt and pity, and the city just rolled his eyes. They were all parasites anyway, and soon they'd all receive the punishment they so richly deserved. That trivial task done, Calgary marched out of the cell and slammed the heavy steel door behind him, plunging the three men into darkness once more.

And Slate tipped his head back and screamed at the top of his lungs. He started to babble, raging at all the propaganda they'd tried to ram down his throat in the past….eternity, it felt like. He'd struggled and fought and raged and it was so hard, so tiring, so exhausting, that all he could do was frantically scream and angrily rant. If he got it all out of his head, it would be gone, right? Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone-

The screaming and babbling and sobbing went on for what felt like an eternity in the endless blackness, until finally it had petered off to the point where Ontario and Canada could hear nothing but quiet sobbing.

Canada closed his eyes and focused, tuning out the sound of the human's sobs. HE could faintly feel Alberta moving towards them, but he couldn't say how long it would be until she arrived.

"She's coming." was all he could say into the emptiness.

* * *

The door flung wide open with a thunderous clang, jolting the holding cell's three inhabitants awake and causing Canada to shudder.

Alberta raised a hand and snapped her fingers a few times, getting the attention of the same Reformationists who had been threatening the nation however long ago. They snapped to attention in that space just beyond the doorway, one of them running to get the lights. Instantly the room was flooded with harsh white light from the fluorescents far overhead, and all three men immediately shrunk back at the blinding glare.

He looked up into the eyes of the latest province to cause him nightmares and heartache as she strode powerfully across the cold concrete floor, and he swallowed. That look of madness in her eyes, the arrogance, the cockiness; god, nothing he hadn't seen before. First from Manitoba, then Quebec, and now…now Alberta. His…no, the youngest of the girls. They hated it when he called them 'his'. They were their own, as they'd all asserted many times; but he was still their nation, their patriarch; and in his eyes, they and their lands belonged to him. And Canada, quiet though he was, would be loath to let even the smallest of them go.

Granted, Alberta wasn't making it easy to stick to his usual instincts. Between the gun on her back and the gas mask in her hand doing nothing to change his perception of these people as psychotic monsters.

She leered down at her nation, the jack-o'-lantern grin on her face a disturbing reflection of Manitoba's bloodthirsty snarl or Quebec's strangle-happy smirk. He'd seen that look before, and it had ingrained itself onto his soul. It chilled him to his core, the thought that it had happened again. That he had _let_ it happen again. But he was still her sovereign. She still had to answer to him. Canada took a deep breath as Alberta smirked down at him, then looked straight up into her blue eyes and said, firmly and coldly:

"Alberta. Listen to me. This has to stop, now. Let us go and we can discuss this like rational adults."

Instantly her face darkened, and Canada's eyes went wide. Oh, that was probably not the right thing to say…

" _Discuss?"_ she hissed, the snarl on her lips turning fully predatory. Ontario opened his mouth to interrupt, to interject, in a desperate bid to Save Canada's ass from the hole he'd just dug himself, but Alberta whipped her head in the direction of her fellow province and hissed,

"Shut it, you. You've got nothing to contribute. If **_either_** of you fucking parasites-" and she paused there to glare at Slate and ensure he too had gotten the message- "-open your fucking traps to say ANYTHING, I'll cut your tongues out and feed it to Sasky's dog, am I clear? You will speak when spoken to."

Ontario gulped, and his sister smiled frostily.

"Glad we're on the same page, then. Now, as for you…"

Alberta turned to face Canada, folding her arms and snarling at the nation with no small amount of disdain in her posture. Did he really think that would work? Did he?

"You've got a lot to answer for, old man." She hissed, "Not least of all the fact that you've spent the better part of **_FORTY FUCKING YEARS_** **treating me like COMPLETE SHIT! AND YOU EXPECT ME TO CALMLY DICSUSS THIS WITH YOU?!"**

Her voice reverberated off the cinderblock walls, an echoing, thunderous roar of rage. But the look in her eyes told Canada that this rage was all her own. This was not Corvus's doing. This anger had been simmering away in the province's heart for untold decades, plastered over with countless distractions and excuses until finally, finally, the corrupt premier had stripped the façade away and bared her hate for the world to see.

"I didn't- I- I've never tried to hurt you!" he protested, the slight stammer in his voice down to sheer terror more than anything else. He could feel her soul, could feel her emotions, and Alberta burned with hate, hate for him and all he represented. She was the personification of the provincial; he, the personification of the federal. And nobody in this godforsaken province had any love for the federal, especially not her.

 **"** **Bullshit."** She spat, "You've tried to hurt me, and don't even fucking try to deny it. And you enjoyed it too, I'll bet, you fucking thieving pinko PARASITE! I SHOULD HAVE LET LOUGHEED CUT YOU OFF, YOU KNOW THAT?! LOUGHEED WAS GONNA CUT YOU FUCKERS OFF THE DOLE, GET YOU THEIVING ANIMALS OFF MY BACK AND OUT OF MY WALLET, AND WHAT DID YOU DO, CANADA?! WHAT DID YOU DO, WHEN I WAS UNDER ATTACK FROM YOUR FUCKING PRIME MINISTER!? **YOU. DID.** ** _NOTHING!"_**

Canada scowled.

Alberta's ranting and raving wasn't entirely unfounded, though he was loath to admit it. During the 1970's, events in the Middle East had caused an unprecedented oil boom in Alberta, flushing the province with cash and allowing then-premier Peter Lougheed to invest heavily in the province's economy and sock away a good 14 billion dollars in savings, called the Heritage Fund. But the flip side of this good news for Alberta was a massive spike in gas prices across the country that lead to the economy being nearly flipped upside down and nearly put the whole east out of a job.

"Trudeau did what he had to do to keep the national economy from crashing! If it weren't for the measures he'd taken, the rest of us wouldn't have had enough gas to keep from freezing to death! That and it was threatening to upend the economy!" Canada snapped right back, a sudden fire in his eyes. The riposte was swift and sharp, laced with his frustrations of decades of having to defend this point of view.

"Did what he had to do? _Did what he had to do?!"_ She echoed, face bright red and utterly livid, "OH, SO PUTTING A BOOMING ECONOMY IN A STRAIGHTJACKET AND TREATING ME LIKE A FUCKING SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN **\- LIKE A FUCKING TERRITORY!** THAT'S DOING WHAT YOU HAD TO DO, EH?!"

The retort stung like a slap in the face, and Canada winced. He opened his mouth to continue, but Alberta steamrolled over him with even more ancient history, even older grievances that had been woven into the fabric of her people's collective consciousness since the very beginning. She'd been formed out of the Northwest Territories with her twin Saskatchewan in 1905, and was little more than a glorified territory at the time. Neither she nor her brother had any autonomy over their resources, and when the oil was discovered, Ottawa's indifference and reluctance to give control of them over to the provinces had bred a festering wound that still seethed to this day.

"I _WAS A FUCKING GLORIFIED TERRITORY WHEN I WAS BORN, YOU KNOW THAT?! AND THEN, OH, THEN CAME THE OIL. THEN CAME THE OIL, AND WHEN I CAME AND ASKED YOU FOR MONEY TO DEVELOP IT, WHEN I ASKED YOU FOR CONTROL OF MY OIL THE SAME WAY ONTARIO HAD CONTROL OF HIS OIL,_ _ **WHAT WAS IT THAT YOU SAID, CANADA?!**_ _WHAT WAS IT YOU AND ONTARIO TOLD ME?! OH YEAH_ _ **,**_ **YOU TOLD ME TO FUCK OFF!"**

Under the bright fluorescent lights, Canada saw the faintest sparkle of something that took him aback. A tear in her eye, growing and threatening to spill, only for Alberta to defiantly blink it back as she stared down the man she seemed to have decided was the cause of all her problems, the reason for all her anger.

Canada opened his mouth, and then, to his surprise and hers, he actually had a retort to make. And as the rage had welled up in her, so too did the frustration well up in his heart, and he snarled. She was just being belligerent at this point.

"I NEVER told you any such thing!" Canada thundered back, "THOSE RIGHTS WERE NEVER YOURS TO HAVE! AND YOU KNOW WHAT?! YOU'RE **GREEDY** , YOUNG LADY! YOU'RE SELFISH AND GREEDY AND YOU DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT ANYONE BESIDES YOUR FUCKING SELF! TRUDEAU HAD TO TAKE THOSE MEASURES AND PUT IN THAT NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM TO ENSURE THE REST OF US WOULD HAVE ENOUGH GAS TO GET BY! AND YOU KNOW WHAT?! AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU'RE NOTHING **!** ** _NOTHING,_** **DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!** THREE MILLION ALBERTANS- THERE'S TWELVE MILLION IN ONTARIO AND EIGHT MILLION IN QUEBEC! SO FORGIVE ME IF I AND MY BOSSES FOCUS A BIT MORE ON _THEIR_ WELFARE THAN YOURS! YOU'VE GOT _SO MUCH MONEY_ AND YOU WOULDN'T SHARE A FUCKING _PENNY_ IF I DIDN'T FUCKING FORCE YOU- _ESPÈCE DE CRÉTIN!"_

Something clicked, and Canada looked up to see the barrel of a machine gun right in his face. The end of the barrel was trembling, and Alberta had a look on her face like the only thing standing between her and splattering his brains all over the concrete was the last screaming shreds of her conscience and the grace of god himself. And the tear Canada had noticed, the tear he had seen her blink back; it resurfaced and slipped out of the corner of her eye, rolling down her cheek and falling to the floor with a single, nearly silent _plip._

"I'm nothing to you." She echoed flatly. "I'm nothing to you, eh? Nothing at all? Fine. FINE. **_FINE."_** She shouted, narrowing her eyes until all Canada could see was the hate burning out between slits. "Then I'll kill you. And I'll kill your boss, and I'll order every single one of your fucking men you marched in here shot too. We're _nothing_ to you, so it's not like it even matters. Corvus was right. You really _do_ hate me. You really do hate us all. You just want to keep me chained by your side to milk me for money while treating me like shit. Corvus was right about EVERYTHING!"

Canada's heart sank.

Alberta's finger curled around the trigger, closing her eyes and bracing herself for…for the splash of….of blood, probably, or whatever it was that happened when you shot someone point-blank, ready to just unload the entire clip and be done with this monster for good…

"STOP!"

She opened her eyes and turned to look at the person who had spoken, the tinge of regret vanishing and being replaced with that same angry, intimidating snarl from before.

It was Slate who had spoken, Slate who had risen to his feet, and Slate who had defied her orders. She snarled and turned the gun on him instead, having far fewer hangups about splattering the disgusting human all over the wall. What was surprising was the fact that Slate had the good sense to put his hands up, looking her square in the eyes as he did so.

"CANADA!" Slate roared with his trademark thunderous bellow, "SHUT THE FUCK UP. NO, ACTUALLY, I HAVE A BETTER IDEA. APOLOGIZE TO HER."

The silence that filled the room following the Prime Minister's words was deafening. If someone had coughed, the echo would have been audible. Canada stared at his boss in stunned silence, jaw agape.

"You- You can't be serious, Sir! She's- she's completely crazy! I meant every word I said-"

"APOLOGIZE, CANADA! **_THAT'S AN_** ** _ORDER!"_**

The noise Canada made in the back of his throat was a reluctant growling noise, and he choked out the most grudging apology of his entire life.

"…M'sorry…" he mumbled noncommittally, glaring at Alberta like that would somehow reverse their positions or put him in a place where breaking the chains wouldn't get Ontario shot in the head.

"GOOD. SIT DOWN AND DON'T MOVE."

This order was followed just as grudgingly, with Canada glaring daggers at the wildly unpopular Prime Minister as he complied with his command.

Alberta lowered the gun- slightly. She was still looking at Slate with narrowed eyes, wondering what precisely the Prime Minister was playing at. She didn't trust him; he could quite easily be trying to trick her. He was scum, moreso than Canada himself. Slate was a politician, after all, and that meant he was automatically scummier than the average human being.

To the surprise of all involved, Slate was actually the one to speak first.

"…Miss Alberta." He said quietly, looking at the floor. The softness of his tone and the humility in his words actually shocked Canada, and he wasn't the only one completely stunned by it. Alberta herself was regarding the Prime Minister with wide eyes, since she'd been fully expecting him to start bellowing again. He seemed….subdued. Remorseful.

"Miss Alberta…please listen to me. I've…I'm now realizing that I've made a grave mistake in coming here." He said, still looking at the floor as he spoke, "And I realize that as of this moment, I have little to bargain on and little ground to make requests. But I would make a single request of you, and in return, I offer you my life to do with as you will. I'm not important anymore."

To say Alberta was shocked by the sudden professionalism and competence from the Prime Minister famous for shouting at the entire G20 when they refused to stop talking and the President was trying to get their attention was an enormous understatement.

"I…request?"

Slate took a deep breath, looking up into Alberta's eyes and maintaining eye contact.

"I, Prime Minister Jackson Angus Slate, offer you my life to do with as you please. All I ask in return is that you release the men I brought here- soldiers and officers and everyone else. Let them go home, and I will ensure they will never come back. That is all I ask. And in exchange, you may have my life, my money, whatever it is that I possess that you desire, you may have it."

Alberta raised an eyebrow.

"So I could feed you to a bear, and you'd be okay with that?" she said flatly. "I could force you to make a video message asking to dissolve parliament, and you'd do it?" The possibilities of having the Prime Minister at her beck and call were slightly outweighing the grudging desire to re-educate the coalition he'd dared to bring into Calgary…But the thought of swelling their forces with trained soldiers was also tempting. She'd need to get Corvus's approval for this one, but she was seriously inclined to let them go in exchange for having a pet Prime Minister. He was the one ultimately calling the shots, after all.

Alberta took out her phone and turned away from the gathering, unlocking it and taking a step towards the door. She paused then, the cowboy hat that crowned her head turning back to look at her three captives.

"…We'll see, Slate. I'll make sure your men are kept unharmed for right now. I need to make a phone call. Oh…and Canada?" She said, turning and smiling at him cruelly, "You're gonna wish you'd never come west."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _#trigger warning history #trigger warning LOTS of history_

 _Good god this chapter was a bear to write. Sorry it took so long- I'm in uni and homework comes first._

 _Anyway, here's hoping you enjoyed that. I strove to make the history as accurate as possible and write it in such a way that anyone can understand it. Hopefully this gives some much-needed context to the events of the story and what's come before!_

 _I did try my hardest to avoid soapboxing here, so I hope to god I was successful. Attempts were made to ensure this chapter was reasonably historically accurate, but don't quote me on any assignments, yeah?_

 _As always, leave a review if you liked it, hated it, or whatever! Let me know your thoughts and I'll write you more story. That's how this works, see?_


	39. Chapter 39

**Chapter Thirty-Nine**

* * *

Saskatchewan was about ready to strangle someone or something. Hours he'd been sitting here under Corvus's fucking fancy-ass lamp, sifting through dry legal documents and papers written in the style of a professional sociopath _(ensure restraints are measured to fit both male and female persons and ensure that Party members are properly trained in correctly fitting them to a human body)_ and much else besides…and still, nothing. Corvus's filing cabinet was basically just full of the most boring evil on planet earth. And of all the words that should be used to describe pure evil, boring really should not have been one. The farmer growled in frustration, hurling the file at the wall so it splattered against it, the ream of sheets floating off in all directions in a rather satisfying way.

The bearded blonde sighed deeply, reaching up to massage his temples as he scooted the delectably comfortable rolley chair towards the filing cabinet again, hoping against hope that Menger's notes would be inside. Saskatchewan thumbed through the folders in the bottom drawer, sighing deeply- until he noticed a flash of that beige manila between two folders, at the very bottom of the cabinet. Like most filing cabinets, this one had two metal rails for special claw folders to nestle into- but this folder had fallen between the rows, and lay unwanted and unread at the very bottom. Saskatchewan pulled it out with trembling fingers, kicking the rolley chair away from the cabinet gently enough that it would roll to a stop by itself. When he was roughly parallel with the desk, he gingerly opened the folder and pulled out the contents- and his eyes went wide.

" _To my dearest benefactor-_

 _I thank you sincerely and from the bottom of my heart for your kind words and your financial support in my own projects following this endeavour. I found this particular project to be both enjoyable and challenging to undertake, and as requested, here are all of my notes on Project Morpheus. All other records of my experiments and any requested modifications have been destroyed, and the test subjects have all been terminated."_

Saskatchewan shuddered. Test…subjects? Terminated? He swallowed dryly, racking his brains. Something about that, something about those words, they were tickling something in the back of his mind, something in his memory that was rather petulantly refusing to surface on command. Still, with Menger's terrifying reputation for using human test subjects….it couldn't mean anything good at all. With a nervous swallow, he kept reading.

" _I would ask, Mister Corvus, for your forgiveness in the tone and intention of some of the materials contained herein; I make my research notes so I may execute upon them later, and the styling I use may be somewhat less than professional. I pray this will not present an issue in any future dealings we may have._

 _Regards,_

 _Doctor Joseph Menger._

It was with some trepidation that Saskatchewan started to flick through the pages in that folder, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling for some reason he couldn't explain. The word _terminated_ seemed to echo in his mind, and it was so hard for him to remember why, why those test subjects would be tickling his memories like that.

To his dismay, it transpired that Corvus was telling the truth about the folder's contents being written in straight-up medical jargon. It was just page after page after PAGE of this nonsense, half of it thick enough to cut with a knife and spread on a bagel made of bullshit.

" _…_ _stimulate subject's hippocampi to induce neurogenesis, which can be shaped and altered by the implantation of suggestions…"_

 _"_ _Frequency variant 27F is noted to potentially overstimulate prefrontal cortex…subject 27 expired after approximately 2.5 hours of continuous exposure. Cause of death determined to be a cranial embolism. Subject had pre-existing condition that would indicate blood clot may have formed naturally, unrelated to testing. Subject disposed of and tests with 27F renewed."_

Saskatchewan swallowed coldly. Considering Menger's track record, subject 27 was doubtless a _human being. A living, breathing, human being, being used like a lab rat._

Saskatchewan continued to flip through the notes, scanning desperately for anything that would possibly spell protection for him from Corvus's insidious evil. Anything at all. But no, the gallery of horrors just kept on going, and going; and that was all there was to see.

 _Subject 14 terminated following development of psychosis-like symptoms after continuous exposure for approximately 10 hours 37 minutes. I would not recommend continuous exposure._

 _Subject 22 terminated following escape attempt._

 _Subject 6 terminated following the development of aberrant and undesirable behaviours not conducive to further experimentation, including continuous screaming, self-destructive behaviours, and violent, unprovoked responses towards both experimenter and fellow subjects._

 _Subject 30 terminated following attempt on the life of a staff member._

And it went on.

And on.

 _Subject terminated. Subject expired. Subject terminated. Subject expired._

It was just a list of horrific murders, a list of atrocities committed in the name of science; Menger's cold, calculating, scientific wording doing little to disguise the fact that he'd taken thirty people and killed every single one of them, if not during testing then following the conclusion of his experiments. Saskatchewan wasn't even extrapolating- it said as much at the end of the subject sheet:

" _All remaining subjects terminated following the conclusion of research and disposed of appropriately."_

He kept flipping through the documentation, wanting to vomit up his disgust at the horror he was reading. Menger really had earned his med school nickname- Doctor Mengele, the fucking _Angel of Death_. But he had to force himself to keep going, because…because if he was to have any hope of saving his sister, any hope at all, he'd need to know how Menger protected himself. How. How. How.

And then….he stopped.

Stapled between two pages was a piece of yellow-coloured lined paper, of the sort that would be torn off a bound ledger-style notepad. It had been stapled between two blank sheets of paper by both corners, and Saskatchewan carefully reached out and tore the topmost of the blank sheets free, eyes widening at what he saw.

 _"_ _Oh, Christopher, you old fool. I knew you wouldn't even bother to read the documentation…I suppose that's what this letter is for, then. To congratulate the person who DID decide to read all of that, because it certainly wasn't you. But assuming this is you reading my letter, I might as well cover my ass a bit, as it were. I would like to thank you for your money, to be certain. Your money is greatly appreciated in my research. I think I'll take your….grant….and go and find out how to repair spinal injuries next. Or perhaps how to completely reverse a stroke. Either way, thank you for the lovely facility in the middle of the Northwest Territories- if anyone finds me up here, I'll be amazed._

 _Oh, but I'd still love to study you, Christopher. My goodness, are you an interesting man. Not quite a sociopath, are you? You are an interesting case. Most interesting is your immunity to your own frequency…oh, I'd dearly love to know how it is that you are. But we play the cards we're dealt, and as much as I'd love to know the precise makeup of your brain and as much as I'd love to dissect your psyche and then dissect you a second time with my scalpel...well, your money is much nicer._

 _I will say, your brain scans were of absolutely no help in devising a method to test my subjects without subjecting myself to your methods. The tests, while extremely simple- convincing a subject to see five lights instead of four, for example- presented a risk to the cognitive faculties of myself and my staff. I would imagine that you might find yourself in a similar predicament, should your own immunity wear off. Which is effectively the purpose of this little note- I don't mean to brag about this, but I reasoned that if the frequency could be used to, as you say, reprogram the mind, then could it not also be used to reprogram the mind…to ignore its effects?_

Saskatchewan looked up at the wall as soon as his eyes had passed over that last sentence. His jaw fell open, and he furrowed his brows, trying his hardest to parse the logic of that last sentence.

"I…what?!"

Use the frequency…to make yourself immune to the frequency? WHAT?!

He shook his head and looked down at the page, as if Menger's alarmingly clear handwriting would contain further answers. Wasn't he a doctor? Weren't doctors supposed to write like total shit?! He wanted to start laughing hysterically, or maybe just start screaming and not stop until the fucking heat death of the sun, or he screamed himself to death. Whichever came sooner.

So he kept reading.

" _Because of the nature of the frequency, namely, in stimulating the hippocampi and inducing neurogenesis while simultaneously inducing a state rather similar to a subconscious trance, these newly-formed nerve cells can be meaningfully directed in the course of one's choosing. Interestingly, this curious paradox was discovered and exploited by subject 25, which rendered itself immune to further testing and as a result, had to be terminated, following interrogation of its methods, naturally. The method is extremely straightforward- expose oneself to the frequency for approximately ten to twenty minutes and then begin to impart a single command…."_

Saskatchewan's eyes flicked up to Corvus's computer again. That…almost made sense.

This…could potentially work.

Saskatchewan stood up and walked to the door of Corvus's study, opening it a crack and leaning into the hallway.

"BRITISH COLUMBIA, GET OVER HERE!"

There, now she'd know he was serious. He'd said her full name and everything; the name that just kind of got absorbed into this mindless acronym most days. Regardless, it was imperative that BC be with him in solidarity on this one; God only knew how much time he had left. He turned back to the computer, lifting the lid and giving thanks that Corvus hadn't set it up to go to sleep automatically when the lid was closed. And then Saskatchewan realized that he had no idea where the hell on Corvus's computer the man had clicked to get that frequency to start up; not a bloody clue in god's name. He looked back at Menger's letter and kept reading, scanning it for something- for anything. And then a single acronym jumped out at him- USB.

 _"…_ _Oh, and I stuck a copy of it on that USB you've always got on you, like you requested. It's the only version of the sound file in MP3 format; all the other audio recordings are in the MORP format that I had the IT guys code up, as per instructions. Don't let that MP3 leak, Corvus. For your own sake."_

Saskatchewan's brow furrowed. That wasn't helpful…last he'd seen of Corvus's USB key, it was clipped onto a key ring that was vanishing into a completely unhinged Calgary's pocket. On the other hand, he could always just root through the man's computer files…he'd been working on another one of his commercials on this very laptop, hadn't he? As long as Saskatchewan didn't accidentally click play...he could probably figure out a way to extract the sound file and use it to doublethink himself out of the brainwashing.

Orwell was probably spinning in his grave, Saskatchewan mused. Bit of a waste of energy, really- if they hooked the fucker's dusty remains to a generator they could probably power a lot of houses with the resulting electricity.

He opened up the program Corvus used for video editing and balked. It was huge, and complex, and for fuck's sake, he just needed to pull the sound file out of it- well, opening the last thing he'd been working on was a good start. The "file" option was in the same place as it was on, uh, well, Word or Excel (which was about all Saskatchewan ever really did on his computer, besides googling things and occasionally playing some solitaire), and to his surprise, there was an option to open a recent file; he clicked on one at random, because it had "commercial' in the name.

The screen bloomed to life, and Saskatchewan stared blankly at it. Oh god, he was going to be totally fucked here if he clicked the wrong thing, wasn't he? BC would know exactly what to click, probably. She knew things about computers, or Saskatchewan sincerely hoped so.

Where the hell was she, anyway?

* * *

BC had just finished stuffing a drunken Corvus back into his crate when a phone rang, and it wasn't hers. They'd handed her Corvus's cellphone, on the assumption that it would be harder for him to get it away from her than Quebec, say. In all honesty, a stiff breeze could probably knock him over and steal Quebec's phone, wallet, and keys while he was lying facedown and scrabbling for his glasses.

She swallowed and pulled the blackberry out of her pocket, pressing the button to answer the call after a moment's hesitation (she was a touchscreen kinda gal and had ditched her Crackberry the minute something better came on the market, really) and held it up to her ear.

"Premier Corvus?"

And that was the moment British Columbia nearly threw the phone across the room in shock, terror, or perhaps both at the same time in equally horrifying amounts, and possibly while screaming.

Because that was her _little sister,_ and that was _not_ how Alberta was supposed to sound. Snappish and bossy, yes, but…oddly…vacant. And…strangely satisfied….?

"…I…Allie?"

The tone of the reply changed gears so fast it practically gave BC whiplash. Alberta went from warm if a bit vacant-sounding to frostier than wintertime and very certain of what she was saying.

 ** _"_** ** _What the fuck have you done with my Premier, BC?"_**

BC gulped. "I- I just- I just took his phone! Honest truth, okay? I just didn't- I uh- I didn't want him- Calling- uh-"

Her eyes flicked over to Corvus's cage, and she shuddered. He was smiling out at her, smiling in triumph and smug satisfaction. Even through his wounded pride and drunken stupor, the human had the cocky smile of someone who'd won.

BC Snarled at him, trying to put some distance between the two of them before Corvus could-

"COULD USE SOME HELP HERE, B'Y!" he yelled, grinning toothily, and the smirk was what really pushed British Columbia over the edge. That _smirk._ That _fucking insufferable smirk-_

"SEND IN DA ARMY, DEY GOT ME LOCKED UP IN A CAGE IN-OH JESUS-!"And that was all Corvus had time to say, because BC stomped over and kicked his crate over, pulling the phone away long enough to roar, "SHUT THE FUCK UP! _YOU'RE SO ANNOYING, YOU_ _ **STUPID FUCKING HUMAN!"**_

Before Corvus's mewls of pain could percolate through the phone's tiny microphone, BC booked it out of the basement, leaping up the staircase, her long legs taking the steps two or three at a time with ease. And it was only then, at the top of the stairs and with the basement door slammed safely behind her, did BC finally raise the phone to her ear to answer Alberta.

"Alberta? Listen, Allie, Allie, I can explain-"

 **"** **I know where you are, BC."**

And that sent a shudder down the raven-haired woman's spine, and she swallowed. Alberta…her sister, her neighbour, her friend…she wasn't the one speaking.

"Allie-"

 ** _"_** ** _You're in Red Deer, aren't you?"_** she hissed.

And just as BC was about to reply, the line went dead.

"…Oh, fuck. Shit. Shit, shit- SHIT- SASKATCHEWAN, WE GOT A PROBLEM-!"

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Ha Ha, oh wow. I'm so sorry for taking my sweet time with this one. University's picking up speed, and I'm determined not to flunk out first term. That said, I'm also determined to get this story done. So what I'm saying here is slow updates, but they will come, I promise. I'm aiming for one a week- fingers crossed._

 _Also, to clarify: "Crackberry" is a rather common slang term for the Blackberry brand of phones._

 _And the ,MORP file extension does not exist. The comma there is intentional, since for reasons beyond my comprehension deletes anything it perceives to be a file name. It's rather infuriating, and has left some gaps in this fic that I need to go fix after I'm done the first draft._

 _Don't forget to leave a review! I eat your words and turn them into more story._


	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter Forty**

* * *

Saskatchewan was being strangely calm about this whole thing, BC decided in the throes of her panic attack. For a start, he wasn't running around and flapping his arms as she herself was doing, and he wasn't yelling at everyone to get packed up so they could get the fuck out of dodge, as she herself was doing. No, he was standing there stoically, staring into her eyes with a steely determination in his eyes, listening to her panic and not saying a single word. It was rather irritating, really.

Saskatchewan grabbed her shoulders suddenly and without warning, looking her square in the eyes as he did so.

"BC. Calm the fuck down. We didn't have time for this before and we've got less of it now."

"ALBERTA KNOWS WHERE WE ARE!" she yelled, "ALBERTA'S COMING FOR US, YOU FUCKING IDIOT! AND SHE'S GONNA KILL US AS SOON AS SHE GETS HERE-"

Saskatchewan growled, clutching his head in one hand. "BC, please shut up. Please. Alberta's not coming for us. I promise she's not."

"HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU KNOW THAT?! HOW?! YOU DON'T KNOW THAT! WE NEED TO LEAVE, GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"

" **No."**

The firmness of the reply, the sheer steel and determination in Saskatchewan's eyes should have rightly told BC all she needed to know about what he thought of her plan. He straightened up to his full height- two inches shorter than the coastal province, of course- so he craned his neck up that extra inch and looked her square in the eyes, face set in stone.

"I'm not leaving Alberta to her fate, Sis. This is bigger than her- this is going to spread out, and god knows where this insanity will stop- if it even does. We're next, BC. You and me. Remember that fucking form Alberta made us sign? That thing? Yeah. We haven't got a fucking choice. If we don't stay here and fight this, it's gonna be our people marching to the beat of that lunatic's drum, and me and you on that sick fuck's rack."

BC scowled. "So what's your plan, then? Stay here and let her get us? Because that's what it sounds like, Sask. That's what it fucking sounds like."

Saskatchewan shook his head. "No. In fact, getting captured is PART of my plan. No, don't say anything. You don't know what I'm planning. All you need to know is, I've found us a way to make ourselves immune to that fucking frequency, and we don't have much time. We need to do this, NOW."

As BC was processing that statement- in particular, she was hung up on the words "frequency" and "immune"- Saskatchewan grabbed her arm and hauled her into Corvus's study, slamming the door behind them and locking it. He had no idea how much time they had left, but they just needed…well, they just needed an hour. If that. He found himself groping out with his mental antennae subconsciously, searching for other personifications- but this wasn't his land, and he wasn't able to sense anything at all. Not even BC standing next to him registered on his radar, and Saskatchewan ground his teeth in frustration.

He sat down in the rolley chair, gesturing at Corvus's laptop. "Look, you just have to trust me. I know Alberta- she was part of that riot, and she's probably too tired to come chasing after us. Meaning she's probably going to call Eddy down here, and he's not too keen on Corvus. So I'd be willing to bet we've got at least an hour, if not more. Calm the fuck down and help me, would ya?"

BC let out the breath she'd been holding, taking her place next to Saskatchewan and examining the video editing program.

"What the fuck do you need me to do?"

He sighed. "I have no idea how to work that damn thing. We need…we need to get Corvus's frequency out of that commercial, we need to get that frequency playing. And just the frequency, mind- no voiceover. It can't have a voiceover. Trust me, it's in Menger's notes... You know how to work this damn thing better than me, so…make it happen."

BC rolled her eyes, choosing to ignore the lack of a please or a thank you in Saskatchewan's words. Rude, honestly. Still, she did as she was asked, wondering just what the hell Saskatchewan was playing at. He was centuries her junior, for fuck's sake- he should have a better grasp of this technology than her, by all rights.

After this was all over, she was enrolling the farmer in some kind of computer class for old people.

* * *

Far to the north, Edmonton's phone rang.

It rang in the dead silence of his house, the only sound in the emptiness, loud and insistent. And it was on the second or third ring that it finally woke the sleeping city from his nightmare- and he did not return to the waking world quietly.

Edmonton bolted upright screaming his brother's name in terror, looking around the room in complete befuddlement. The blankets were too soft against his skin, the ringing of the phone harsh and confusing on his ears, and the non-smell of his bedroom confusing. He shivered, the sweat drenching his body catching a breeze from his open window and amplifying the night's chill; while he'd been sleeping, autumn had given up the ghost and the first snowflakes had started to fall.

Edmonton wrapped his arms around himself and panted, desperately trying to calm himself. It...It had just been a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream, a dream where he couldn't move and he could barely breathe, chained to a wall and forced to watch as Corvus…Corvus murdered his brother. Cal had been screaming at him, begging him to rescue him, and most of all, asking _Eddy_ _why, why did you do this to me,_ _ **why**_ **?** But he'd been unable to speak, unable to do anything but watch as Corvus tore out his brother's heart and fed it to a raven perched on his shoulder, tore out his heart and lungs and…and Edmonton didn't want to know what else.

The phone had stopped ringing, and he let out a shaky, terrified breath. His people were sleeping, or at least, the majority of them were; the night owls would be night owls, right through to the end. But with the majority of those minds silent, so too was the chanting and the rage that fogged his mind over during the day. It kept him from thought, kept him from rationality, kept him from…so much else.

The phone started to ring again, and he picked it up, tapping the button to answer the call and holding it up to his ear.

"He…hello?"

"Eddy. I don't know what you're doing, but I need you to get down to Red Deer. They've got Corvus. And we'll be having a chat about your failure to keep them contained some other time, yeah?"

The city blinked, trying to process those words. The panic from his nightmare had subsided, the warmth in his heart frosting over again in a matter of seconds. But Corvus's name, that sent a fearful shudder down his spine. He fumbled for his glasses, shoving them on and forcing the world to coalesce from blobs of indistinct black and grey to recognizable shapes. His other signed and framed Gretzky jersey, worn by the man himself as he'd hoisted the Stanley cup over his head was prominently displayed on his wall, as well as countless other Hockey-themed knickknacks and other little touches. A bowl of handmade pysanka graced his bedside table, next to his clock, and he found himself staring at their bright colours and geometric shapes as Alberta spoke on.

"You got all that, Edmonton? They're in Red Deer. Try the North Side- I can't give you anything more specific than that. And when you're done, take them back up to the legislature and lock them all up, got it? Sasky too. I'll be up tomorrow morning to check- Corvus and I need to have a little talk. The Prime Minister's just made me an offer that's too good to refuse."

And with that, Alberta hung up.

Edmonton let out a shaky breath, fighting a strong urge to just roll over and go back to sleep. Now that he had his marching orders, a strange hateful coldness seemed to frost over his eyes as he climbed out of bed and started towards his closet. His phone was already dialing a number- that of the Edmonton chief of police.

As he thumbed through his uniforms, shoving aside the suits and overalls and camouflage, he finally settled on the black suited form of a riot cop, complete with armour and a helmet. And naturally, a very large gun.

Cal had handed Edmonton the keys to Corvus's blasted cage on his way out of the legislature, where they'd jangled obnoxiously in his pocket as he'd been weighted down by a broken arm and a table. And the thought of that woman who had humiliated him spurred him on, making him call the Chief again and again, until finally on the tenth ring it connected. And before the officer could speak, Edmonton interrupted.

"Hello, Sir." He said frostily, face blank and neutral despite the hate burning in his heart, "We've got some work to do tonight."

* * *

BC had managed to whip up something she called a "GIF" after about ten to fifteen minutes of messing about with Corvus's computer, time she'd also used to upload a looping version of Corvus's frequency onto both of their phones and a spare USB key which seemed to house the premier's….snuff collection. Not quite porn, really; they'd had a look at its contents, and it had proved to be a gallery of pictures of…well, torture. Woodcuts, which was interesting; but then there were photos too, and that was the point when BC surreptitiously decided to just wipe the whole goddamn drive and plug a high-quality version of the file into it.

And then they'd both taken a seat in front of the machine, Saskatchewan reading over Menger's letter over and over again to try and figure out exactly how it had been done- what did subject 25 chant to themselves, what, what, what? No answers were forthcoming, though, and as BC turned on the frequency with a tentative click of the mouse, Saskatchewan looked at her nervously and started to think to himself. Something was bubbling up in his brain- words Corvus had said, but that wasn't what he wanted to contemplate now. The letter mentioned how getting Menger's staff to immunize themselves in unison…

"I can't hear it." he mumbled suddenly, but that wasn't right, because he didn't want to train himself to not _hear_ it; then he'd be susceptible to its effects without even knowing what was happening. It was remarkably hard to think with the frequency swaddling his thoughts like cotton balls, and both him and British Columbia were staring at the screen blankly, both sullenly silent as they thought and thought and thought, fighting against it to immunize themselves to the brainwashing.

"…I can think for myself, and so can you." He started to say, the words coming from a place of confused determination, "I can think for myself. I can't hear your lies _. I can think for myself, I can't hear your lies…"_

* * *

Edmonton's eyes had glazed over, and there was nothing inside of his mind but hate and the desire for vengeance on that woman who'd humiliated him. Corvus? Oh, Corvus could die, for all he cared; Corvus had hurt him, tormented him, abused him; he and Calgary both were victims of the monster's mad desire to cause pain and suffering. Alberta cared for Corvus's wellbeing, and it was Alberta's will he was going to enforce. Not Corvus's will. Corvus had no authority over his actions.

Or so the city told himself as he laced up his rather literal jackboot. The police officers he'd press-ganged into service were busy completing the final preparations of the assault vehicle. The SWAT team had agreed to come to his house as long as he was dressed and ready to go, and Edmonton was only too happy to oblige. He'd gotten into the armour they'd given him the minute Alberta had hung up, and now was just lacing up his boots on his own front step.

"Are you ready for this, Mr. Edmonton sir?"

The man standing nearby was a new recruit on the SWAT team, or so the commanding officer had told him. And it showed- what an absurd question. Was he ready? Of course he was fucking ready to go and stomp some fucking insects. Corvus, oh, he'd leave Corvus to the humans who actually cared for his wellbeing; Edmonton's only goal was laying down some hurt on British Columbia. He stood up as soon as he was satisfied with the knots he'd tied, picking up his assault rifle and nodding at the greenhorn.

"Oh, you have no idea how ready I am, kid." The words were far too smooth and emotionless for them to sound natural, and in the moonlight filtering in between the clouds, Edmonton's glasses seemed to gleam with a dangerous light. He was smiling, and it was all wrong; or perhaps it was completely and utterly right. A smallish little smirk, betraying both internal emptiness and a flaming wall of hatred.

Edmonton cracked his knuckles and smiled.

Time to go beat the fear of god into those upstart _parasites._

* * *

 _A/N: Welcome to uni hell, kiddoes! This is half of what was going to be one long chapter, but so as to have an upload at some point in the next eternity, I figured I'd post this now so you have something to read while I work on not failing University. I'm kind of screwed in that regard._

 _Oh well._

 _Next time: France! Possibly!_

 _As always, leave a review and let me know your thoughts! Your feedback gives me life._


	41. Chapter 41

**Chapter Forty-One**

* * *

"…Quebec?"

The tall, lanky province turned at the sound of his name, looking away from the window he'd been staring out of for the last quarter of an hour. The moon was beautiful as it rose over the prairies, and Quebec was thinking about how much he'd like to paint it, to keep the snapshot of it forever on a canvas. But Manitoba's tone was insistent and afraid, and so the French province turned at the summons, immediately at attention.

"Oui?"

Manitoba coughed, sprawled on the couch and trying to force his body to cooperate even as the bullet poked out of his side, looking absolutely hideous to anyone who didn't know what was going on. Quebec prepared himself for English; Manitoba didn't really speak French when he was in a foul mood, or indeed in pain, unless he was under extreme duress. It was a casual chit-chat language for him; anything else was the job of English.

"…Do you think Sasky's turned traitor?"

The question was met with dead silence. This was clearly something Manitoba had been thinking about for quite some time, the simple statement causing a furrowing in his brown and a narrowing of his eyes. And before Quebec could voice his opinion on the matter ("Non…?" with a dubious question mark) Manitoba blustered by him and continued:

"Like…I don't know what he's doing up there with BC, but it's nothing good for us. Did you _hear_ his fucking plan? He wants to hand you and me over to Alberta and use us as bait for…something. Some kind of trap. That's not…that doesn't sound above-board. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. He _let Corvus live,_ Quebec. He let that slimy fucker _live._ And not only that, he made the executive call for us to convene _in Corvus's fucking house."_

Manitoba paused to cough up some more blood and moan a bit as the bullet worked itself free another half-centimetre, both things he casually brushed off as only a personification could, and continued with his spiel, wiping bloody gunk from his mouth:

"I mean, he's _always_ been close with Alberta. Always. I mean, they're twins, for crying out loud. And they visit each other all the damn time. It would have been really easy for Corvus to ask Alberta to invite him over under political pretenses- like, my boss does that all the time, and then we'll usually have dinner or something, shoot the shit over coffee. But, that's the thing. He let Corvus live, he's hanging out under Corvus's roof, he's working on some kind of crackpot plan that's probably gonna get us both killed…I dunno, Quebec. I think Sasky's gone psycho."

And Quebec blinked a few times, letting all Manitoba had just said really sink in. That…that made way too much sense. Except, why?

"Why, zen? Why all of zis? Why even bozer with zis pretence of being one of ze good guys?"

"There's a two word explanation for that, and here it goes: British Columbia." Manitoba said grimly, looking staunchly serious, "British Columbia's not the sharpest prong on the moose's pan, and she probably hasn't noticed anything wrong with him…but I highly doubt she'd just come quietly with the crazies if Alberta and Corvus asked. This entire thing is some kind of a setup to get to BC. And we're the bait for her trap."

And as Manitoba's rather unnervingly convincing conspiracy theory drew to a close, Quebec hesitantly pulled out his phone and started to walk away.

"Hey, what the hell? Where the fuck are you going?!"

"I'm going to call…I'm going to call Papa." He said as he climbed the stairs, walking towards the bathroom just past Corvus's office.

* * *

 _Much earlier, on the QE2…_

Black riot gear. Black machine gun. No helmet and no visor; Edmonton found the damn thing uncomfortable, and it didn't really matter with what he was going to do. Hate burned in his heart, a cold, empty kind of hate that simply wished to rip and tear and destroy, to rain spite and terror and vengeance down on his foes. He tilted his head back, listening to the rumble of tires on the road and the rushing of the wind as the blacked-out SWAT van sped towards its target. There was a slight spark of fear, of concern, that popped up in the depths of his heart, in the depths of his mind; a little tiny voice asking if perhaps he might be the villain in this piece, if perhaps what he was going to do here made him the monster; he crushed it without hesitation.

Of course he was in the right. He was justified in anything he did to these…to these vermin, save perhaps rape and…and…and hurting them a lot. Deliberately causing them pain, but not killing them. To make them confess how bad they were. Not even vermin deserved that. Not even… _Vermin._

Edmonton twitched, clenching his jaw and trying to drive out the images that jumped into his brain, the memories that flooded to the front of his mind like clockwork every time the legislature's basement or torture was mentioned or every time he thought about them. His breathing started to quicken, and he closed his eyes and squeezed them shut tightly-

 _Cold and dark and I couldn't move and HE was there and HE was laughing at me and calling me an animal and a parasite and a rat and a freak I'm not a parasite but it didn't matter, did it? It never mattered at all to HIM it was just pain pain pain and I wanted to die so so so badly I wanted to die and die for good but I wasn't allowed I wasn't allowed to die by him by God I just wanted to DIE-_

Something else surged up in his mind, equally unbidden and equally unwanted. The thoughts of pain and torture made him want to start screaming in terror, but there was a curious quality to them- making him afraid of himself, afraid of what he was, afraid of what he was doing, and deeply afraid for his people. He was afraid for them, and afraid _of_ them; the hate in their hearts was a terrifying thing, and Edmonton wanted to scream. But then something else drifted up from the depths of his mind, calming him, soothing him, and wiping his mind completely blank of all those pesky and troublesome thoughts he was having, the ones that did nothing but hurt him.

The chant welled up in his mind, and he mentally recited it, not wanting to start talking to himself in the dead silence of the police van. But with every recitation, with each repetition, his breathing slowed, his mind emptied, and the cold, steely rage that burned in his heart thoughtlessly and passionately and **perfectly**. Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and Free. He'd kill all the parasites that tried to stop them and then everything would be perfect. They'd be free. They would be free, and it would be glorious.

And as they pulled into Red Deer, and the driver, on Edmonton's suggestion, started driving his van towards Corvus's house, the city himself smiled contentedly, his blue eyes blank and empty behind his glasses.

Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free.

 _I'm so happy._

* * *

Quebec climbed the stairs slowly, taking his phone out of his pocket with a sense of tremendous trepidation. Corvus's study was located on the second floor of his house, and just beyond it was a little washroom that Quebec had every intention of using to discreetly ring in the cavalry, or less pithily, Papa France. But it was as he was creeping by Corvus's office door that Quebec froze, stopping to lean in and press an ear to the ancient wood. They'd been in there for hours now- What in god's name were Saskatchewan and BC doing in there?

He didn't want to believe they were traitors. That went too far for Quebec to contemplate. He didn't want to think of them as traitors; he didn't want them to be traitors. Partly for his own sake; if they really had turned traitor, then it was a dangerous and dicey affair for Quebec to even be anywhere near this study, or hell, even in this goddamn province. But if they had…well, if they had, stuffing Corvus in that crate was a strange way to go about it, then. But Saskatchewan hadn't authorized it, nor was Quebec entirely sure he fully condoned it; and if Saskatchewan _had_ switched teams, he certainly hadn't mentioned that fact to Corvus.

Manitoba's theory, shabby as it was, was looking less and less plausible- at least until Quebec placed his ear against the study's door.

The Frenchman's eyes flew wide open, and he staggered back from the door, clapping a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming in fright. No. No, it was true. It was all true, and he scrambled to the bathroom, closing the door slowly and quietly despite his cantering heart and quaking nerves. Because _they were chanting._

 _They were chanting, and there was the faintest buzz of the frequency from somewhere behind the door._

That was all it took in Quebec's mind. Manitoba was right, totally and completely right, and he thumbed through his contacts, frantically jabbing at the one he wanted and putting it to his ear. Come on, come, on, _please_ pick up…

 _"_ _Salut?"_ The voice that came through was very much awake and alert, and Quebec looked at his watch- small wonder, then. It was almost lunchtime in France; his estranged papa had been awake for hours now, probably.

"Allo Papa? Papa, écoute, je- j'ai besoin d'aide. Je suis plein dans le pétrin et Alberta a complètement pété les plombs-" ( _Hello Dad? Dad, listen, I- I need help. I'm in a big mess and Alberta 'completely blew her fuse'-_ )

He spluttered out the words, panic starting to rise to a fever pitch. Quebec was gripping his phone so hard the case was starting to crack, acutely aware of the fact that he was in some deep shit and wanting nothing more than to go home.

"Quoi? Attends, attend, répète-voir, qu'est-ce qui se passe _?"(What? Wait, wait, repeat that, what is happening?)_

On the other side of the ocean, France was starting to worry. He put his espresso down on the café's table, looking over at the headlining story on page three of his newspaper- it too mentioned Alberta, but he hadn't though it any reason to worry. After all, it was the English part, apparently, and it wasn't like Quebec was there, right? He had to admit he'd only been half-listening to his erstwhile son's shouting, mostly because he'd been reading the paper at the same time and his brain had always had a tough time doing both at once. He sighed and picked up the china cup again, taking another sip-

"A-Alberta, elle est devenue folle, elle a complètement pété les plombs. Son premier, il est fou! Complètement fou! Il... il est- il a rendu tout le monde fou et ils veulent tous nous tuer et ELLE veut aussi nous tuer et elle va se séparer de nous et j'suis seulement ici parce que je sais comment c'est d'avoir pété les plombs et de vouloir se séparer mais c'était pas comme ça pour moi parce que ils veulent **TOUS** se séparer et _C'EST ENCORE PLUS GRAVE AU SECOURS!"_

 _(A-Alberta, she went crazy, she completely lost her mind. Her premier, he's crazy! Completely crazy! He... he's- he made everybody crazy and they all want to kill us and SHE wants to kill us too and she's going to separate from us and I'm only here because I know how it is to lose your mind and wanting to separate but this wasn't like that for me because they ALL want to separate and IT'S EVEN WORSE HELP!)_

The sound of shattering crockery reached North America as France dropped his espresso. The word "Separate" coming from Quebec's mouth was already enough to put France on red alert, but then he had to go and compound the situation by- wait, what-?

"Oh mon dieu, Québec-" France spluttered, completely unaware of what the hell was going on until he glanced back at the newspaper- and his blood ran cold in his veins. A rebellion in Alberta? Mass insanity? A missing Prime Minister? And now, Quebec, his colony, his child, was stuck in the middle of that maelstrom?! France opened his mouth to say something, to ask where Quebec was, what he was doing, only for the province to bluster right over his erstwhile papa's words, in a total panic- and only made the already-frightening situation worse for his poor papa's heart.

"Et je crois que Saskie nous a trahis, il est de son côté et Papa j'ai peur, aide-moi s'il-te-plaît!" ( _And I think that Sasky has betrayed us, he's on her side and Dad I'm scared, help me please!)_

France immediately got to his feet, eyes wide and fumbling in his wallet for the correct number of Euros to pay for his espresso and the food that had yet to arrive. The panic was infectious, and it left him with a palpable sense of fear and urgency; in trying to comfort Quebec he was also, in a strange way, trying to comfort himself.

"J'arrive! Tiens bon mon ange, j'arrive tout de suite! Qui en train de vous trahir?" _(I'm coming! Hang on, I'm coming right away! Who's betraying you guys?)_

The name "Sasky" was a bit familiar to him from somewhere or other; he'd never bothered to really get to know the English provinces as well as he ought to have done, and that was his fault; a fault that could possibly lead to his son's demise. France swore loudly when he realized he didn't have enough change, scooping it all back into his wallet and ignoring the scene he was creating as he pulled a fifty-euro bill from his wallet and shoved it at the nearest available waiter's face, yelling at him to keep the change and then adding something about his son being in grave danger.

And all the while Quebec was still talking.

"Saskie! Saskie est en train de nous trahir! En tout cas, c'est ce que Mannie pense... dépêche-toi, s'il-te-plaît, je crois que tout ça va finir mal, ça va être un cauchemar!" _(Sasky! Sasky is betraying us! Well in any case, that's what Manny thinks... hurry up, please, I think this will all end badly, it's going to be a nightmare!)_

France didn't even bother leaving through the café's door, he simply grabbed his bag and his newspaper and vaulted the patio's fence like it wasn't even there. The name "Saskie" wasn't exactly helping to jog his memory, but France had a distinct feeling that it wasn't important; all that mattered was his son was scared, and was in a position where he thought he was going to be betrayed, and more to the point, his angel, his child, was in mortal danger.

"J'arrive, j'arrive! Où es-tu? Je viens te chercher tout de suite!" _(I'm coming, I'm coming! Where are you? I'm coming to get you right now!)_

He babbled out a stream of reassurances as he sprinted by the statue of Napoleon in the town's square, heading flat-out for his home so he could get packing and get the fuck out of Paris. He needed to save his son, he NEEDED to save Quebec-

"Je suis à Red Deer, dans- **ohmondieu, pitié, NON!"** ( _I'm in Red Deer, in- ohmygod, mercy, no!)_

And France stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes going wide. Because through the phone, he could hear the distinctive sound of wood breaking into thousands of tiny splinters as someone kicked the door down, could hear his son screaming in terror, could hear the sounds of shouting and scuffling all through the house that Quebec was allegedly in- and worst of all, a laugh. A deep, vicious, laugh; someone who wasn't holding the phone to their ear was laughing at his son.

 _"Québec? Québec, mon ange, qu'est-ce qui se passe? C'est quoi ce bruit- Québec!_ _ **Québec réponds-moi!"**_

And then, suddenly, he got a reply.

"Heya, Frenchie- I'm guessing France? Pleasure to speak to you for the first time. I'm Edmonton. You've probably never heard of me, but that's okay. Before long, you'll know all about me and my family. And as for Quebec, well. He's a little….busy right now, and won't be able to answer the phone. Sorry about that."

And Edmonton laughed, putting the phone down on the bathroom's counter and shattering it with his rifle butt.

And the last thing France heard was Quebec screaming his name.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Sorry about the lack of updates from me! It's almost the end of term, and I've had the vast majority of this chapter sitting around unfinished for awhile now. Sadly University has to take precedence over Adventures In Albertan Loonyland._

 _Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed France's brief appearance in this chapter. I wanted to try something a bit different from last time with the French translations; so let me know what you think. Seriously, I really like to read your comments, guys. They are the fuel that feeds this fire and the engine that keeps me going._


	42. Chapter 42

**Chapter Forty-two**

* * *

Edmonton smirked.

"Ah, firearms. Wonderful invention, eh, Frenchie? Redresses the balance between the two of us, makes me equal to you and you equal to me. Without this lovely gun, I'd be just a city, and you could whoop my ass pretty damn quick, I'd wager. Ah, guns. How did that quote go? 'God may have made all men, but Sam Colt made them equal…' Or something to that effect."

Quebec seethed with hate at the blue-eyed monster before him, not even deigning to grace him with a reply as he was put in handcuffs by a human police officer.

On second thought, maybe he would.

"You're a _monster."_ He spat, snarling at Edmonton through narrowed eyes as the officer roughly shoved him into the hallway, "Is zis what you truly want, Edmonton? Is it?! IS IT?!"

Edmonton shrugged. "Hey, not ours to question why and all that. I'm just following orders. You might be interested to know that I was happy to just let your little rebel cell do as you pleased here- Alberta's the one who sent me to come get…"

He paused, the cocky smile on his face wavering slightly as a spark of real fear crossed his face, something which didn't escape Quebec's notice.

"…Corvus?" he finished curiously, raising an eyebrow. Edmonton wouldn't have that kind of reaction to Saskatchewan, but surely Corvus, if he'd subjected Edmonton to the same treatment as Calgary, would be enough to provoke that kind of response?

"Shut up." Edmonton snapped, his voice breaking, "You're lucky I don't just-just shoot you and leave you for the dogs. It's what you deserve, you, you- you fucking parasite."

The emotion in the city's voice wavered, scared and sad and angry before finally plunging back down into the pit of brainwashed hate that resulted in that same steely-cold monotone that was so intimately familiar to Quebec by this point. The province decided to clam up instead of goading Eddy on further; the last thing he wanted was Edmonton making good on his threat. In his black armour, with that look on his face…

No. Not a good time to toy with him.

What really threw Quebec for a loop, besides the whole "totally being a traitor" thing, was the fact that Saskatchewan and BC were going quietly and simply accepting it, without so much as a flung punch or a sideways glance. He snarled at the farmer, taking Saskatchewan's refusal to meet his eyes as further proof of his guilt, even as the police clapped him in irons and marched all three of them down the stairs. Then again, Edmonton was also behind them with a look on his face like he was itching for an excuse to start shooting, and that was as good a reason as any to not resist arrest.

As the three of them were lead down the stairs towards the door, Saskatchewan was privately thanking the lord that none of them had thought to pat him or BC down for their phones or that USB key. Going quietly had been a smart idea- especially since they now had what they needed. And as for Manny and Quebec, well. It was unfortunate what might happen to them, but they'd be…fine, right? They'd be fine. They were always fine. Or so Saskatchewan kept telling himself, and it was becoming a bit of a mantra of his own. Not that anyone else was liable to know that, since he had yet to show even a flicker of his fear on his face, something that seemed to be spooking the officers on either side of them.

Good. Let them feel fear. These humans didn't know what they were doing, didn't know that they were pawns in a game of chess much greater than any of them could imagine. And if Saskatchewan was playing for white, then Corvus had perhaps just captured one of his bishops.

It was the strangest thing, though. As they entered the premier's living room, Saskatchewan noticed immediately that something- or more specifically, someone- was missing. The couch was empty, the only evidence that it had been laid upon in the last several hours the copious bloodstains… and the bullet, lying innocently on the carpet. The lead was deformed and had mushroomed hideously, a few tiny chunks of Manitoba's flesh still trapped in the folds and wrinkles of its deformations. Truly a hideous way to die.

But…where the hell was he?

* * *

"I don't want to do this, you know."

Manitoba's voice was smooth and even, talking more to the walls than the man in the cage before him. He was delaying the inevitable, trying to put it off; did he really have the stomach for this? It was a horrific thing he was about to do, a crime in any sense of the word. But Corvus…Corvus was _evil._ He was a bad, bad man, and he needed to die. But to die in a way that Alberta wouldn't notice, wouldn't be able to sense a mile away. He couldn't just strangle Corvus or shoot him; then again, the premier's guns were all locked up tightly in a safe, and it was highly unlikely he'd give Manitoba the code for it.

The province paced, staring at the floor. This was, in a word, murder. He wasn't a murderer. But Corvus…Corvus needed to die. For the good of everyone, Corvus needed to die. But, well…

He had a way to do it, of course. And ample time; or so he'd hoped. The door to the basement was locked, after all, and Manitoba had had the good luck to finish healing from his bullet wound just as the SWAT team pulled into Corvus's driveway. So that was a start. But as for the act itself, well. He'd been brought up, uh. Well, to say that Louis Riel would have encouraged him to use this particular 'blessing' of his would be an understatement.

Personifications had a way, a method, of terminating a human life uniquely their own. Snakes had poison fangs, bears had teeth and claws, humans had knives and axes, guns and spears…and personifications? Well, they had all of that, (perhaps not the poison) …and…. _perspective._

 _"_ I could…put you in perspective." Manitoba muttered, looking at the dog crate with withering contempt, though not quite the amount of determination he'd been hoping for. The thing was, he really didn't want to use that…"gift". They said that if you did, if you DID do that to a human, it…left a stain on your soul. Nobody had ever explained to him HOW the stain formed, or why it was on your soul; but the point still stood. The implication was that taking that life would leave blood on your hands forevermore, and he was deeply reluctant to do it. Now that he was here, staring at the crate, what had seemed like such a grand idea upstairs had lost all of its appeal.

"Yeah, I'll just…nip down here and fucking kill Corvus. Great fuckin' idea, Manny…" he muttered to himself, pacing back and forth behind the crate. Corvus wasn't responding- the stupid human had fallen asleep, or so Manitoba hoped.

There was one other issue, of course, as to why he hadn't sprung into action and offed the evil premier for the good of mankind just yet. And that was, well, Manitoba wasn't entirely sure _how_. He'd never done it before; he'd never been in a situation where it was the only option left to him…and that was the rub. He had other options. Well, he had other options, and he wasn't consumed by single-minded rage, which was the other condition that had to be, or could be met. The legends were absolute _shit_ at telling a guy what he needed to do to make a bad man die in absolute agony.

Probably a good thing, on reflection.

Manitoba sighed, putting his huge hands in the pockets of his jeans and walking around Corvus's creepy basement workshop…thing. The man was a freak, that was for fucking certain. The Metis poked at an apparatus that looked disturbingly like Corvus's dreaded rack, only in miniature; like it was for mice or rodents or something. Which was already pretty sick and fucked in the head; anyone who tormented small animals for fun was either a cat, or an utterly depraved human being.

Corvus stirred in his cage, snorting and grunting and groaning in pain. The alcohol was hitting him pretty hard- Saskatchewan had gone a little overboard with getting him all good and liquored up, Manitoba thought. On the other hand, Corvus was kind of a fatass- it was amazing that he could even get drunk at all.

He approached the crate seriously, narrowing his eyes and feeling the rage boiling in his gut. BC had locked the crate shut with a padlock she'd found. It was a cheap, crappy thing, and kind of old- Manitoba raised an eyebrow at the state of it. He could probably rip it open- the mechanism inside was a lot more fragile than the bent iron, not that a normal human would ever know that. It was all that stood between him and Corvus, and Manitoba didn't have any worry about that little lock. Really, it was more for the premier's defense at this point.

"What…gah…What the hell are you doing, boy?!" Corvus snapped, cradling his head and moaning in pain. His head was really starting to hurt, and he really didn't want to have to deal with one of those pesky personifications until he'd stopped feeling like a total zombie. The faint light from overhead was enough to cause him to clamp his eyes shut, and the faint sound of that stupid province (the woman? The French one? He didn't know and didn't care.) Scrabbling around, as quiet as it was, was enough to make Corvus's head start to hurt even more.

Manitoba's eyes narrowed, and his smile had become downright dangerous.

"OH, I'M SORRY, DOES THIS HURT YOU A BIT?" He thundered, letting his voice reverberate through the tiny basement, the thoughts of killing the human momentarily abandoned in favour of tormenting him. It _was_ Corvus's choice to crack open a drink while surrounded by what was ostensibly the enemy, even if Saskatchewan hadn't quite announced his intentions to change teams at that point. Which he almost certainly had; it wasn't that the farmer was a good actor, it was simply that his face betrayed less emotion than that of Vladimir Putin. And with that ability to conceal his thoughts, it left little doubt in Manitoba's mind that Saskatchewan's betrayal had probably been in the works for several months, all of it informed by Corvus's machinations.

Which, he realized, gave him yet another valid reason to kill the human. But he still wasn't sure quite how…and unbeknownst to him, every second he spent thinking about it was another second he didn't have. Because upstairs, BC more than willingly told the officers where she'd stashed the premier, if only to get the gun out of her face.

Back in the basement, Manitoba knelt down and grabbed the padlock in his hands, curling two fingers through the cheap mechanism's shackle and taking a deep breath. Quietly tapping into his inner strength was something that he was very easily able to do. Strength for their kind was a confluence of factors, but the most easily measurable component was population. Population and economic might, working in tandem; and it was proportional to what they were going up against. Manitoba had more than enough muscle to snap this little lock apart, or strangle Corvus one-handed; but he was nervous about confronting Saskatchewan, because his little brother had grown tremendously. And Saskatchewan could lay him flat on his back, to say nothing of what Alberta or-god forbid- BC could do. And actually, Manitoba realized distantly, fear gripping his heart, _Edmonton_ could probably-

The lock snapped in his hand, and Corvus's cage door swung open loosely just a fraction of an inch. Manitoba had that terrifying thought- that either Edmonton or Calgary could probably wallop his ass good- at the forefront of his mind as he stared into the cage, fear coursing through his body and his panic starting to rise. Which was when a bullet slammed through the wood of Corvus's basement door, noisily blowing a huge hole through which a SWAT officer reached in and undid the lock on the far side of the door before kicking it open.

Manitoba's eyes went wide as the men stomped down the stairs, and Corvus just smirked at him from the depths of his cage.

"Get fucked, ya filthy _parasite."_

* * *

 _A/N: Well, that took a long time to get done. I figured I ought to at least try to get something out for this one, so here you go._

 _Sam Colt, the man Edmonton is referring to in that quote, was the founder of Colt's Patent Firearms. So basically that's a gun wank quote. It's one of my favourites, too. Don't judge me._

 _Anyway, as per usual, if you liked it, or if you hated it, or whatever else; leave a review. You know where to click to make that magic happen._


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter Forty-Three**

* * *

The moon hung high in the sky, shining down on the deserted streets of the city possessed by madness. Slate's men huddled in a warehouse that had been procured for them to sleep in, fitful nightmares captured fleetingly on the sacks and cardboard planks offered for bedding. A city of prisoners, some locks and chains more firmly realized than others. And far from that grim and grotty factory floor, in the comfort and safety of his own home, Calgary wasn't sleeping either. He stalked the halls of his sort-of palatial living space, aimlessly putting one foot in front of the other in his pyjamas. This place was his home, and yet it was not; he felt like an invader in this space, exhausted and tormented and wanting nothing more than to sleep soundly like he'd used to.

The nightmares never ended. He'd close his eyes and drift off to the comforting chanting of those million voices that reverberated in his blood, and the next thing he knew he would be swamped in a nightmare in which Corvus was there, doing despicable things to him or his brother, the city he loved and hated like only a younger brother could. But the nightmare he'd woken from, thrashing and screaming; the one that kept him from even wanting to settle back down to sleep ever again, that had been Corvus…and Alberta.

Calgary shuddered. The premier was a monster, and he despised Corvus with all his heart and soul. He hated everyone to the east of Manitoba, too, but not quite so much as he despised Corvus, or at least the Corvus from his nightmare. Calgary stopped by a large bay window and wrapped his arms around himself in a tight hug- the nightmare had been so real, so terrifying, and so, so sickening. He'd…that fucking _animal_ had reached out for his little sister and …had _touched her,_ and he didn't ever want to see _anything_ like that again as long as he lived.

Speaking of his little sister…She was sleeping downstairs, in his guest room. A good place for her to be, but Calgary found himself with a strange urge to go and check up on her, even if it would be a bit weird. On the other hand, his brain had decided to upchuck some of the most vile shit he'd ever seen in his life at him to spectate, so with that in mind, Calgary tiptoed downstairs and carefully opened his sister's door, wincing at the slight squeak it made.

And immediately it became clear that all was not well in Alberta's dreams, as his sister, too, tossed and turned in the throes of her own personal nightmare.

* * *

 _"_ _Sasky?"_

 _She was all alone in the cold, and as the flakes of snow blew and swirled around her, Alberta shivered. Her brother's voice, she could hear it through the veil of snow; but the white powder obscured her vision and blinded her, and she could only shiver in her threadbare sweater and continue to march on in search of him._

 _The silence was driving her out of her mind, the feeling that there should be voices in the emptiness compounding the loneliness until it was all Alberta could feel, all Alberta was capable of processing in her mind; and Saskatchewan, her brother, her quarry, he was the only thing that fuelled her endless march through the freezing snow. Salty tears started to trail down her face as she realized that everyone who she'd loved had left her, as the realization sunk in that someone or something had taken all her friends and family away and replaced them with nothing but this bitter, stinging, empty cold that seemed to permeate every fibre of her being. And still she marched, driven on by the faintest of hopes that her brother would be there, that…that he would somehow make this alright, that he would somehow calm the storm._

 _Alberta stumbled across the tracks quite by accident, and it was a blessing she did at all; so fresh were they that they couldn't be more than a few hours old, if that; the blowing snow would have filled them in if they were more than a few minutes at the least. So excited was she that she turned and started to run, chasing them through the snow- and heedless of the other markings she saw around the tracks in the empty white void. There were two pairs of footprints made by two pairs of boots, with a trail of tiny drops of blood spattered here and there along their path. Occasionally the tracks stopped and half-turned to face each other, as if transferring a heavy burden between the two of them; but Alberta didn't care. She had found life, she had found people, and she might just have found her twin._

 _So she ran and ran until the trail terminated at a wooden cabin, an oldish thing of moss and timber, with a fire in its chimney and a flickering glow from beyond the frosted windowpanes. But most frighteningly of all was the raven, perched high upon the eaves of the cabin, looking down at Alberta and cawing a harsh laugh of pure delight, as though the black bird knew of things she could scarcely comprehend. And she snarled at the bird, or tried to; her face was too numb for that sort of expression, the cold having deadened the muscles in a thousand subtle ways over the course of her tireless march._

 _But Alberta didn't care about the bird or anything to do with the bird. She'd come for one reason, one purpose, and without a second's hesitation, she pushed the cabin door open and stepped inside. And as the heavy wooden barrier swung closed behind her, the province sucked in a gasp at the sight before her._

 _Two figures stood in front of the flickering light of the fire, staring into its dancing flames in total silence. Alberta could only see their silhouettes from where she stood, her view of the fine details veiled by the dancing flames, but it didn't matter one iota. She knew who they were._

 _"_ _Cal? Eddy?"_

 _Calgary's silhouette was fairly distinctive against the flickering fire, his prominent cowboy hat proudly perched there in defiance of the snow. And he started to turn, slowly, in response to his name being called, and the movement was….wrong. Edmonton mirrored his motion in reverse, like a reflection in a mirror, and Alberta took a step back. Because there was something horribly, horribly wrong with her big brothers, their movements just a smidgen too jerky to be natural, a dash too stiff. And she still couldn't see their faces clearly, everything about them still veiled in those shadows, the same ones cast by the firelight's glow._

 _And they said…nothing._

 _Nothing in reply, simply stared at her from their shadows, as if they were waiting for Alberta to do or say something that would give them cause to move._

 _No greeting to the woman they'd known their whole lives, the province they'd cared for as elder brothers for almost a century; just this cold, cold silence, that left Alberta shaking and fumbling in the darkness, fumbling for her pocket._

 _She didn't recall putting the flashlight in there, nor did she recall ever having it before the moment it seemingly appeared like magic in her hand; but as she bade it into existence it gladly illuminated the scene before her. And with a simple press of the rubberized button, the entire scene changed from one of eerie silence to something downright horrifying._

 _Her brothers, her elder brothers, and more to the point her CITIES…had been murdered. Oh, they still stood before her, and they were even smiling to see her; but it was a cold, frosty smile of false cheer. Less out of contempt for her presence and more (she suspected) because they couldn't feel anything at all anymore. They were operating on memory alone, without any connection to the actions or motions they made. And their eyes were so cold and so empty, Alberta felt as though she was staring into two hollow shells instead of people. But the thing that struck her the most, the thing that leaped out under the flashlight's trembling glare, was the blood._

 _Blood dripping down their shirts, both of them gashed open to reveal the same sort of hideous wound. Something or someone had stabbed itself into both of their hearts, and instead of spurting out in a hideous mess, they'd shoved something metallic into the gaping hole and let the last few drops of blood drip down and soak into Edmonton's jersey and Calgary's dress shirt. Their wounds had rent the fabric asunder, a huge reddish stain permeating the cloth and making it blatantly obvious that the only reason the boys were still upright was whatever had been placed inside them._

 _"_ _No. No. No. Who- WHO- WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!? WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?" she screamed, staggering away from them until her back hit the door._

 _"_ _You know who we are, little sis." Cal said evenly in reply, the thing embedded in his chest seeming to tick or clank into place, as if bringing him to life like some demonic possessed doll, and it wasn't doing anything to help her rising terror and panic. His face was human enough in its motion and movement, his expression of amused bafflement all well and good; but his eyes almost looked like they'd been picked out and replaced with crude glass marbles for all the life they contained. And the province's heart skipped a beat in off-kilter terror as she slowly realized that these... these wind-up dolls of her big brothers might do that to HER. They might take HER heart out, and make HER into a terrifying living toy-_

 _"_ _No, we won't. We love you, little sis. We would_ **never** _hurt you." And that was Eddy speaking there, his voice warm and caring and kind and friendly, and his eyes so cold and dead and empty, and Alberta started to sink to the floor, shaking in fright. She hadn't said that aloud, she HADN'T, and he'd just known, had just read her thoughts and replied to them without even needing to ask what she meant or needed or wanted or-_

 _"_ _We are part of you and we love you._ **We live to serve you.** " _They said in unison, and she started to- well, a heaving sob broke through her panicked panting, because these were her brothers, these were their voices and their bodies and their smiles and faces. These were her cities, her cities that pulsed with the life and energy and love and power that kept her immortal heart beating, kept her eternal clock wound. And they were not, in no way and by no imagining were they the same men who had practically raised her as best they could._

 _They were…dolls. Toys. Crude approximations of the people she knew, the irreplaceable ones she loved. But they seemed to be obedient to her, an obedience that seemed to have been obtained by stripping their hearts and souls away and supressing or-god forbid- removing their free will. And perhaps they would tell her…_

 _"…_ _Who did this to you?"_

 _They just grinned at her, a small chuckle escaping one of them- Cal or Eddy, she didn't know which. And instead of answering, the raven that was still perched on the eaves of the cabin cawwed its delight at her misery._

 _"_ _You already know who it is that has shown us the light."_

 _Alberta shivered._

 _"_ _And…and Sasky? What…what did you do with Sasky?! Where is he!? Where's my brother?!"_

 _She was approaching hysterics, the voice of reason long since buried under an avalanche of terror and fright, and yes, hate. Voiceless, baseless, fearful hate for everyone and everything that they, those puppet-things, those abominations, those monsters masquerading as her beloved capital and her thunderous heart; and nothing else mattered anymore except saving whatever remained to be saved._

 _Calgary smiled and turned away, lifting a bucket by the fire and dousing it in a single swift motion, the gallons of water putting the flames out with an audible hiss._

 _"_ _He's this way. We tried to save him, but he wouldn't accept our help. We're sorry, sis."_

 _And Alberta swallowed all her screams and terror and crawled into the tunnel behind the fire, the hole in the fireplace leading to this long trail into the bowels of the earth. And she crawled along the cold stone in that pitch darkness for eternity after eternity, finally emerging in a small, airless room filled with the stench of death and misery._

 _And in the center of the room, on its knees and with its wrists suspended by chains, was Saskatchewan's bloody, lifeless corpse._

* * *

Alberta bolted awake screaming at the top of her lungs.

She was shaking in fright and drenched in sweat, the soft covers puddled around her waist as she tried to come back to her senses, unsure of what was real and what was fake; was it all just in her mind, or was it (god forbid) really real?

And it was in this foggy miasma of fear and uncertainty that Alberta fumbled for her phone, heart cantering and face etched with confusion and worry. Calgary had started to pound on the door outside, which wasn't helping her lingering wisps of paranoia. He was coming for her, maybe; or maybe he was just as scared as her. She didn't know, and couldn't know, and as she unlocked her phone and fumbled it to the keypad, Alberta could feel herself trembling with nerves.

The phone rang, once, twice, three times…

The answer came just before the voicemail hit, with the sound of swearing and someone fumbling it out- and that someone was most definitely NOT the intended recipient.

"Oh, sweet fucking Jesus- Hello? Who the fuck is this?"

Alberta let out a small, shaky breath, face drawing into a scowl.

"Eddy?" she asked sharply, "What the fuck are you doing answering Sasky's phone? Where is he?! I need to talk to him. Now."

This was met with thirty seconds of muted cursing and scraping and fumbling, during which Alberta seriously contemplated throwing the little gadget across the room and stamping on it until it broke. She needed to talk to her brother, and every second Edmonton spent staring into space or whatever it was he was doing (juggling Sasky's phone along with some tennis balls, by the sound of it) was another second for her blood pressure to climb. Finally there was a distant, muffled _click_ and an even more muffled _s'foryou,_ and Alberta took a shaky breath-

"Sis?"

Alberta let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. That was Sasky. That was her brother. He was okay. He was alive, he was breathing, he was fine, and it was all just a nightmare. Relief flooded through her, a tear or two welling up in the corners of her eyes and promptly getting swallowed back down- not now.

"Sasky…Thank god you're okay. You are okay, right? What's happening?"

There was a brief pause before her brother replied, "…I'm...good…"

He sounded remarkably unconvinced of this fact, and Alberta raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong, Sasky?"

Several hundred kilometers away, Saskatchewan swallowed nervously as he stared down the barrel of the very large gun that was being held approximately three inches from his face.

"I, uh, well-"

"Don't lie to me, Sasky. You're doing that thing where your voice goes a bit squeaky in the middle. What's happening?"

There was the harsh crackling sound of her brother letting out an exasperated sigh.

"…Sis, I'm in a pair of handcuffs, Eddy's holding a really big gun right in my face, and it's four AM and I haven't slept at all. That's what's happening."

Alberta swallowed, a punch of guilt hitting her square in the stomach. Sasky was in handcuffs and being held at gunpoint. That wasn't what she'd ordered Edmonton to do…then again, it was her own damn fault for being so vague. She'd ordered her city to rescue Corvus and capture Sasky and his crew, so…the handcuffs and the guns were probably an inevitable part of that. But it was her _twin brother_ being held captive, and as he shifted uncomfortably in place, she could hear the jangling of the handcuff's chains. She gulped- the sound of jangling metal only deepened the guilty pit in her stomach. This was…this was wrong.

Saskatchewan coughed suddenly, and before Alberta could open her mouth to start apologizing pointlessly, he cut her off.

"I…Sis. Uh. While I've got you on the line like this…look, I didn't want this to be so sudden, and uh, I didn't want it to be like this…but…I've thought about it some while we've been hiding out here, and I…I want to join you."

Everything went dead silent on both sides of the telephone call.

…For approximately three seconds, until someone in the background near Saskatchewan shouted "BULLSHIT!" Alberta quirked an eyebrow, both at the suddenness of her twin's confession and the fact that the shouting voice sounded a lot like Corvus. Except that couldn't be Corvus, because the word was drawn out in a funny way, and the speaker of the word sounded really drunk. Whatever, she could get the full disclosure later.

All that mattered was the fact that her brother seemed to have changed his mind completely in the short period of time since she'd last seen him, and the suddenness of his decision was about as smooth and natural as whiplash. It was also a little hard for her to swallow-there was that little squeaky-voice thing again, plain as day, signposting the fact that he was lying to her. But then, that little voice-thing he did also kicked in for a couple of other reasons- because he wasn't fully committed to what he was saying, or perhaps he was up to something else. The other possibility was that he was freaking out because there was a gun in his face, and that, Alberta was sure was true.

"You sound like you're lying. Why should I believe you? You kidnapped and imprisoned my premier, and you weren't on my side before. Why should I believe you? You could be working for Canada." She was just spitballing, but her people's paranoia had become her own, welling up within her and tainting her voice with hints of ice and malice. Alberta's heart started to freeze over as she spoke, the warmth for her brother brought on by her nightmare already dissipating. And then there was the fact that Sasky sounded like he was lying to her about something actually serious. This wasn't a birthday present or a little white lie to cover his ass, this was a huge, geopolitical, nation-altering thing he was lying about. And as she considered it, the ice in her heart only grew frostier as the little voices floated up from the depths of her mind. What if he WAS working for Canada? Oh that would be rich, wouldn't it. Canada trying to keep her down by using her beloved twin as bait for his fucking trap. Oh yes, that was just fucking disgusting. She'd put the old man's head on a fucking pike for that, she would….

And as Alberta stewed in the sudden rage that welled up from the depths of her heart, Saskatchewan swallowed nervously. His window of opportunity was closing, fast.

"Because- Because I didn't escape, did I?" he spluttered, and oh god, he was about to fuck this up so, so bad. That was a _terrible_ excuse, and he knew it.

"You're up to something. What if you're trying to trick me? Who put you up to this? Was it Canada? I'll kill him. _I'll fucking kill him. How dare he do this to you. How dare he?!"_ She hissed back, and he could see her eyes narrowing, could practically taste the sudden fear and derision in her words. Saskatchewan looked over at Corvus, flicking his eyes just that extra quarter-inch to look the hungover premier up and down- and the bastard was smirking at him, smirking like he'd won.

"I- Alberta, please-"

"I've heard enough. You…We'll talk about this later. I'm coming up tomorrow afternoon with Calgary, and we'll discuss this then."

Alberta hung up, and Saskatchewan's heart sank as he realized that he was fucked.

* * *

 _Bleh, that took forever and a day for me to crank out and I'm super sorry about that. Consider this a late Christmas present, although I held off posting it on Christmas because it's kinda heavy shit._

 _Anyway, that should be it for the really tough chapters- it's all smooth sailing from here. I'm probably gonna go back and start really seriously editing this beast once it nears completion, so don't fly away just 'cause it looks done._

 _Also, I've started a new story! It's unrelated to TWWH, and it's called Pigskin Mirror. It's gonna be a lot shorter (I hope) and a hell of a ride from top to bottom. Don't worry, I'm not abandoning TWWH. With that said, go check it out if that's your thing!_

 _As always, if you loved it or hated it, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!_


	44. Chapter 44

**Chapter Forty-Four**

* * *

The door to Corvus's little torture chamber slammed closed with a thunderous _clang_ , and Saskatchewan sank to the floor and held his head in his hands. They were here again. Prisoners awaiting execution, and it was all his fault for trying to bluster his way past Alberta's paranoia. He didn't even have his phone anymore- Not that it would have helped. His plan had been to get Alberta to trust him, and then…well, he had a theory. A theory that he was hoping he could test out on Edmonton. A theory that was now doomed to remain as such forever, since he had none of the things he needed to see it to fruition.

The flagstones were cold underneath his jeans, but he didn't care. Manitoba and Quebec had both gone into a corner to mutter to each other in French so nobody else could understand; and that suited the farmer fine. Nothing was ever going to get better. He wasn't going to be able to save his sister. He couldn't…He had nothing.

BC sat down next to him, putting an arm around his shoulder.

"So." She said, "What's the plan?"

Saskatchewan just shook his head in despair.

"There is no plan." He mumbled. "We're fucked. I had a theory was going to test out on Eddy, but…now, I can't. And we're trapped here, and Alberta's gonna be here in a few hours, and…and it's all a mess, BC. I don't know what to do anymore. I thought I had it under control but I don't and I don't-"

Saskatchewan's babble was abruptly cut off by BC pulling him in for a hug, a hug that seemed to be slightly painful for her for some reason, judging by the little hiss of pain she made. Saskatchewan quirked an eyebrow, but accepted the gesture anyway, resting his chin on his much larger sister's shoulder and closing his eyes. It was nice to just be held in someone's arms, letting someone else take the weight of the world off his shoulders. And while Alberta was generally the one he hugged the most, BC wasn't bad at it, really. He wasn't going to complain.

The mountainous province pulled away after a little while, letting both her hands rest on Saskatchewan's shoulders as she looked him right in the eyes. Saskatchewan had calmed down considerably, but BC's piercing gaze wasn't helping him stay that way.

"Why are we fucked, exactly?" she asked suddenly, the tone surprisingly stern for a woman who was generally so carefree, "What exactly was that theory of yours and why was it so important?"

Saskatchewan blinked. That…that was not what he was expecting her to say. He opened his mouth to reply that it didn't matter anymore because there wasn't any way he'd be able to apply it, only for his adopted sister to cut him off by raising up a finger.

"Okay, one. Don't you dare start with that "it's not important now" shit. I don't have a plan, and neither does Manny or Quebec. So basically, it's all up to you, flatlander. Anything's better than nothing at this point. And two, you actually read Menger's notes. And to top it off, you're probably the only one who could probably make heads or tails of them. So. What was that plan of yours?"

Saskatchewan blinked.

"I…Well…I had a theory that…Menger's…I was going to see if it was possible to snap Eddy out of it." he mumbled lamely, "But they took my phone away, and I can't now. It had the frequency on it and…well…yeah. I needed that stupid thing to make it work."

He sighed and rubbed his eyes, looking at the floor.

"-So hang on a second, because I was listening to all of that," Manitoba interrupted, "And from where I'm standing, it sounds a hell of a lot like your plan to counteract Corvus's brainwashing was with MORE brainwashing on top. Seriously, Sask? Seriously?! That's pretty fucked up. And yeah, maybe you're going about it from a different angle, yeah, maybe it is for the greater good, but for fuck's sake you're still depriving these people of their free will-!"

 **"** **NO!"**

The sudden ferocity in Saskatchewan's voice as he leaped to his feet and turned to face Manitoba was enough to make everyone jolt. And for just a second, the stone mask slipped- and Saskatchewan's face was a pastiche of indignant rage and irritation. And then it was back up, the farmer's gravelly growls the only insight into his emotional state.

"NO, Manitoba, that is NOT what my plan is at ALL," Saskatchewan hissed, "The theory I have is the _complete opposite_ of that. These people that Corvus brainwashed **_A **r** e. Not. Bad. People. _**The majority of them don't truly want this, I'm sure of it. Are they angry? Of course they are, otherwise it wouldn't have resonated so well with them. But what if we could just switch off the jamming signal for two or three minutes and let the masses _think?!"_

He panted a little after delivering his rant, staring straight into Manitoba's shocked eyes with a steely conviction. Saskatchewan was sure of his words, sure of his plan, and sure they were totally screwed. So he slumped where he stood, defiant expression turning towards the floor as he added,

"But they took away my phone. And now I can't test it on Edmonton. All I needed was the frequency and a bit of time alone with him, that's all. But I don't have any way of accessing either and now we're fucked. Sis is gonna be under Corvus's thumb forever and I'm just-"

The slap connected with Saskatchewan's face sharply and swiftly, and the farmer's moany rant was completely cut off by the flat of Manitoba's palm. His elder brother folded his arms as he recovered from the hit, the conviction having leaped from one prairie province to another.

"Pull yourself together, for fuck's sake!" Manitoba snapped, "You're her fucking twin. You know her and her stupid cities better than me or Quebec do. And the minute you give up is the minute Corvus REALLY wins, you got that? So don't you DARE give up on me, Saskatchewan. Your plan sounds….well, I'm sure it's going to end in me dying painfully. But fuck it, anything's better than ending up a fucking windup doll for her freak of a premier. So get a fucking grip. There's gotta be a way to get Eddy down here to give you back your phone…"

BC coughed, and the three men turned to look at her.

"Actually, I can fix that." She said with a smile, holding up her own cellphone with a triumphant little smirk on her face.

Saskatchewan's eyed bugged out and he shoved Manitoba off of him, the slap and the swearing long since forgotten to marvel at the little gadget BC had somehow smuggled in here.

"I- How?!" he spluttered, staring at it in wonder, "How- how did you get that down here without Eddy-"

BC winked. "Victoria's Secret Compartment. Little trick I learned from NWT. You know how your cellphone always seems to die in the cold, even when you charged it all the way full? The best way to get around that is to keep it warm, someplace out of the way. And as I suspected, Eddy's many things, but he's not a pervert. So."

BC pulled him aside for a moment to show him her password (and threaten to relocate his gonads to his eye sockets if he started going through her search history), and while that was happening, Manitoba and Quebec looked at each other and then at the lone toilet in the cell. Corvus had installed the latrine along with about ten rolls of toilet paper, for no other reason than cleanliness and making sure his torture chamber was clean. There was also a small sink, though it lacked a mirror or any real fixtures save some taps, and Manitoba folded his arms and looked from the two in the corner to Quebec and then at the toilet paper.

"So, Frenchie. I have an idea how to get Sasky out of here long enough to test his stupid theory. Any ideas how to get Edmonton down here sometime before morning?"

Quebec looked down at Manitoba and started to think, looking around the room. They were pretty sure Edmonton would be wandering around upstairs to stand guard- after all, unlike everyone else involved in this sordid shitshow, he'd actually gotten an hour or two of sleep. But the problem was that they needed to get him down to their level, and the torture chamber had been soundproofed very thoroughly. So yelling for help was right out. Quebec had a rough idea of what Manitoba was planning, and in order to make it work, they'd need…something like that little wall-mounted intercom, actually. His eyes fell on the small plastic box inset into the opposite wall of the dank little grotto, and that set the Frenchie's mind racing. It only had one button, so presumably was rigged up to call a certain phone line or something, so that Corvus could summon some assistance…and in a deserted legislature, a ringing phone would be very, very loud. At least, he hoped so.

But then there was the problem of reaching it. Quebec shoved his slender arm through the bars with ease and reached in vain for the little intercom, to no avail. As small a room as it was, it was still a good two meters out of his reach. So he slid back inside and looked around the room once more, his eyes finally falling on that little wheeled cart with the plastic bins where Corvus kept all his nasty supplies. When Sasky had gone through it last, he'd shoved it out of the way and towards their cell- and based on the construction of it, and the fact that many of the items were still in the drawers…

Quebec pointed at the little rainbow-coloured set of bins and elbowed Manitoba. "Zere. See zat? It's made of little poles. Zere's bound to be some tape or somezing in zere I can use to disassemble it, oui?"

Manitoba nodded. "Which is a great plan, and I see where you're going with that, but Sasky and I throw a football around a lot, so I reckon it'd just be easier to grab that cart, find something kinda heavy in there, and throw it at the button instead of the long pokey-stick."

Quebec huffed. "Or we could do zat, I suppose."

* * *

"C'MON QUEBEC! YOU CAN DO IT!"

"YOU'RE SO CLOSE!"

 _"LA FERME, TU ME DISTRAIS!"_ Quebec roared, gritting his teeth as he slotted his leg through the bars of the cage.

The slender Frenchman's limbs were the only things long enough to have a hope of reaching that cart, and when his arm had fallen just short of the target, he'd instead opted to lie down on the floor rather than admit defeat. Quebec's shoe lay off to the side as he reached out with his toes, biting his lip in concentration and ignoring the fact that this was going to totally ruin his pants. He could always get a new pair, after all. But time was of the essence, and dignity had no place in these trying times.

Manitoba was busily flushing wad after wad of balled toilet paper in the hopes of clogging the drain to the point where it would be beyond the help of a plunger. He was being remarkably efficient about it, too, adding small handfuls of hair and dirt he found in corners of the cell and wetting the paper in the sink so as to pick it up better. As soon as he'd completed one slimy, disgusting ball of blockage, he'd flush it and three of its friends before they could disintegrate, patiently building up the blockade until the stupid thing would start to overflow.

"JE L'AI!" Quebec shouted, his big toe and one of the little ones clamping around a crossbar of the chest of drawers and pulling it in close. A sense of triumph welled up in the Frenchie's breast as he pulled the cart in, grinning ear-to ear as it scooted to a stop right next to the bars within easy reach. To everyone's terror, it started to roll away, until BC and Saskatchewan lunged out and grabbed it before it could, the two of them going through its contents for anything heavy enough to throw and hit the button. Quebec himself seized the opportunity to put his sock and shoe back on.

"Parfois, je m'épate moi-même!"Quebec said with a smirk as he did up his laces, prompting Manitoba to roll his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, good for you, Frenchie. Meanwhile I'm over here scrabbling around with cold water and slimy fucking- SHIT, I GOT IT! HELL YEAH! HAIL TO THE KING, BABY!"

The toilet let out a choked gargle, and the Metis took a moment to bask in his triumph, putting his hands on his hips and beaming proudly.

"Oh, how regal of you, your majesty," BC quipped in a faux-deferential tone, "Your mastery over clogging toilets leaves us mortals in awe of your skills."

Saskatchewan snorted, thoroughly amused and already feeling much better about the whole affair now that they were actually doing something constructive. Sitting around waiting for death was an invitation for despair and exhaustion; but fighting their own exhaustion to actually achieve a tangible result was far better. It left him with a feeling, however delusional, of actually helping to make the world a better place, or something to that effect.

Before long, BC and Saskatchewan had assembled a collection of objects, large and small (and all sinister in their own ways) that would make a more fruitful throwing item than any of their shoes. There was a raised plastic lip around the edge of the intercom that would deflect any attempt to throw shoes, and besides, they only had eight shots that way.

The toilet thus blocked, Manitoba grabbed a D-cell battery and Saskatchewan a weird chunk of metal, and the throwing began.

And there were a _lot_ of misses.

BC groaned after the tenth thing bounced off the cinderblocks to the side of it, facepalming in amazement. "Holy fucking shit, I thought you two said you could throw!"

"We can!" grunted Manitoba, tossing another battery, "But these things are way smaller than a football-"

Quebec rolled his eyes behind his glasses and decided to get in on the action, grabbing a vaguely ball-shaped metal container and tossing it at the intercom with a single graceful throw. And to the amazement of everyone, it smacked into the button- and pressed it down with a little _click._

BC cheered, and Saskatchewan and Manitoba looked at Quebec, utterly stunned.

"I- Wh- How-"

"Try zrowing it like a snowball, you idiots." He quipped, folding his arms as the intercom played a variant on a telephone's dial tone.

* * *

The sound of the telephone ringing nearly jolted Edmonton out of his skin, and would have resulted in him firing off a few rounds from his machine gun in terror. Would have, but he'd taken the gun's clip out specifically to prevent that exact scenario from arising, since shooting holes in the legislature's opulent interior was not his idea of a good time. There were lines, after all. But the ringing in the otherwise silent, tomb-like space was ceaseless, and it seemed to be coming from near the premier's office.

He'd been stalking the halls all by himself, ceaselessly, muttering along with the endless chanting that seemed to permeate every fiber of his being. It brought him a sense of comfort, really; to be so connected to the will and hopes and dreams of all of his people was an experience that he, as a personification, thoroughly enjoyed. The fact that everyone was in assent…although the power of the chanting did lessen at night, and it let in things that he would rather stayed out of his mind. Rogue thoughts that didn't matter anymore seemed to pop up endlessly- perhaps it was rogue thoughts that were the cause of Alberta's nightmares?

But his musings on the subject were interrupted by the ringing of the phone. He made his way to the premier's office quickly, booted feet stomping off the polished marble floors and echoing off the walls, taking him straight to the secretary's desk. The phone there was ringing, and without any clues as to who it was, Edmonton picked up the receiver and held it to his ear.

"Hello?"

Down in the holding cell, his voice echoed out of the tinny intercom, and everyone fell silent for a second. Saskatchewan clammed up with nerves, and it was BC who called, "Uh, Edmonton? We, uh…We've got a little issue down here."

Edmonton blinked. "What?! How the hell did you rats manage to-"

"Look, there's an intercom on the wall, okay? And Sasky-"

Saskatchewan coughed. "The toilet's fucked up, and I really need to take a piss."

Edmonton blinked. On the one hand, he was sorely tempted to tell the lot of them to piss on their socks, and on the other, Corvus was probably going to chew him out if the prisoners made a mess. And the premier's idea of "chewing him out" wasn't something Edmonton ever wanted to experience ever again. Ever.

So with a weary sigh, the city groaned, "Fine, I'll be down in a minute. Fucking _stupid hmmmfg parasites gmmmfg-"_ he muttered, slamming down the receiver and slotting a fresh clip of bullets into his gun.

* * *

 _A/N: So here's to make up for last chapter. Finally we can move into the final arc of this thing. I actually wrote all of this in one continuous go- without music. Hm. I wonder what that says?_

 _Probably nothing to be quite honest._

 _While I've got you here, go read Pigskin Mirror. Go. Do it. You know you want to. It's got a pirate in it. It's got Alberta in a lab coat. It's got Ontario in Princess Leia's bikini thing. Okay, not that last part, but you should totally go read it. I promise it's not going to be as long as TWWH. All you have to do is click over to my profile and have a look._

 _As usual, if you liked it, if you hated it, leave a review, a follow, or a favourite! I really appreciate your feedback, guys. Don't be shy. Every little thing is loved and treasured._


	45. Chapter 45

**Chapter Forty-Five**

* * *

BC's phone weighed rather heavily in Saskatchewan's pocket as Edmonton marched him out of the torture chamber in sullen, resentful silence. Saskatchewan gulped, feeling a pit forming in the bottom of his stomach of real fear. Edmonton might see the phone in his pocket. He could decide to just shoot him. A thousand terrifying scenarios were running through the farmer's head, and he was starting to shake with nerves. But on the plus side, it wasn't public speaking that he was about to attempt. It was one person. A one-on-one chat, and he even had some time to prepare.

Edmonton marched him up the steps and into the cafeteria, pointing at a single-person men's washroom and herding him over to it. Saskatchewan had been hoping to have more time to do this, but apparently not, and he'd have to come out guns blazing on this one. Metaphorically, of course.

"Make it quick, fucker. You're lucky I'm doing this at all." The city snarled, jamming a key in the lock and turning it to open it up. Saskatchewan was surreptitiously herded inside, and Edmonton slammed the door behind him, leaving him in pitch darkness.

Saskatchewan was grateful for the cellphone's flashlight function, seeking out the bathroom's lightswitch and flipping it on so he could actually see. He locked the door, moving in front of the sink and taking a deep breath. The province pulled the phone out of his pocket and started to flick through BC's music, making sure for the thousandth time the damn thing was set to vibrate instead of chirp. She had a ton of songs, and finding the right sound file- okay, there, that one. MengerModifiedFrequency; that was the one. He fussed around with it, ensuring the ten-minute sound file was set to loop, and then took a second to splash some cold water in his face.

 _C'mon, Saskatchewan. You can do this. Do it for Alberta. Do it for your sister. Do it to save them all. And worst-case scenario, he shoots you in the head. You go home to Regina and…well, you've lost your twin. But still._

The farmer was still trembling with fear as he turned the volume to its lowest setting and pressed play, slowly turning it up until he could hear the frequency's tone buzzing in his ears. He put the phone to sleep, grateful that it still kept playing the tone, and looked at himself in the mirror.

"You can do this." He muttered. "You can do this, you can do this, you can do this…"

No, he really…well, he could. He knew he could. His nerves didn't think it was possible, but Saskatchewan knew he could and would _have_ to do this. Edmonton knocked on the door impatiently, and Saskatchewan let out a deep breath, willing away all his fears and jittery nerves. He was the one who'd read the notes. He knew what he was doing. He'd have to do this, alone.

"I'm done!" He called, turning and opening the door much more quickly than he was intending.

Edmonton had his gun up to greet the farmer, initially scowling only for his scowl to melt into a look of fear and confusion as he realized what that faint buzz in his ears was. He looked around, left and right, and then at Saskatchewan, eyes widening.

"You- I- How- How did you-"

"Calm-Calm down." The farmer said, fighting to keep his voice even and neutral and soothing and to quell his own rising panic. The words he was saying were as much for his own benefit as Edmonton's, which was essential, as he got the sense that he was running out of time.

"Calm down, okay? Calm down. You…Hurting me might be a bad idea, you know?" he offered gently, trying to ease the confused city into it with a few gentle suggestions like _please don't shoot me I'm trying to help you._

Edmonton's gun drooped to his side as he stared Saskatchewan down, trying to get his fogged brain to function. This…was….confusing. The cognitive dissonance was hitting him particularly hard, confusion shining out from behind his glasses. _He is an enemy and enemies must die…but hurting him…is bad?_ The frequency filled up the city's head with its endless drone, swaddling his thoughts in cotton balls and making it impossible for him to think straight or retort what he was hearing, and it all left him feeling unbalanced and off-kilter.

"…I…" was all Edmonton could manage to choke out, Saskatchewan putting a hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay, Eddy. It's alright. You don't need to worry, alright? I'm trying to help you. I'm a friend. We're all friends here."

Edmonton's brow furrowed, and Saskatchewan saw his finger starting to curl over the gun's trigger. Nope, too much, too soon- fuck, no, this wasn't right. He wasn't here to put more foreign thoughts into Edmonton's brain, he was here to-

"Alright, maybe we are and maybe we aren't. Listen to me, Eddy. All I ask is that you listen to me until I'm all done talking, okay? That's all you need to do, and I promise you can go back to whatever you were doing."

This elicited a much better response, and Saskatchewan was internally relieved when the finger went off the trigger once more. A bead of sweat started to trickle down the side of his face as he started to think.

"What is it that you want, Eddy?" he asked, hoping to elicit some more confusion that he could then capitalize upon. Instead, the question seemed to bring a sliver of clarity to the city's thoughts, his eyes focusing dead on and his eyebrows furrowing.

"I want to be free."

That wasn't right. That was something Corvus had put there in his mind, something Corvus had stuck in there….But navigating this labyrinth wasn't easy, and there was the ever-present threat of the gun, too…

"I see. That's an…honourable goal. Uh…oh! Oh…Eddy, tell me…the chants, in your mind. You hear that, right? The chanting?" Saskatchewan offered weakly, based on what he'd seen Alberta doing at the table and the conference. And the hallway. And what Quebec had been doing on the plane. And the chanting of the masses on TV…the chanting, always, the chanting. It was the backbone of his hunch, and he was praying he was right.

Edmonton simply nodded, his eyes glazing over again as he undoubtedly started reciting along with it in his mind.

Okay. Okay, he could work with that.

"Okay, Eddy…I want you to do something for me. I want you to do one thing for me, alright? I want you to let your mind go quiet."

Edmonton blinked, furrowing his brows in total befuddlement. He opened his mouth to ask for a clarifying statement, which Saskatchewan was happy to pre-emptively offer.

"I want you to ignore the chanting, alright? I want you to ignore it. Make it quiet. Let all the chanting and the drumming and…and whatever else, I want you to let all that go quiet." He said gently, placing his hands on Edmonton's shoulders and looking into his eyes.

"No more chanting. No more orders. Let everything go quiet…"

Edmonton stared at the province with wide eyes, the cotton-balls filling his brain slowly starting to grow. And as Saskatchewan repeated his simple request, the chanting grew quieter and quieter until Edmonton's head was full of...nothing. There was nothing in his head, nothing-not even any rogue thoughts, just…buzzing. Endless, ceaseless buzzing. His face had gone totally blank- not even confused, just….vacant.

And Saskatchewan had to bite his lip to keep himself from cursing. No, No, No, that was all wrong, that was all wrong- he wasn't trying to make the man into a blank slate, he was trying to bring back his free will! But….perhaps. Hid green eyes flicked downwards and he looked at his pocket, realizing distantly that perhaps it was the frequency itself that was bringing it about in Edmonton. Perhaps…and if he simply shut it off…?

Theeeeeen he might get shot. Best to play it safe, first…

"Eddy, listen to me. I'm going to shut off the frequency, and I want you to keep the quiet in your mind, do you understand me? Keep the quiet. But not everything. I want you to do one thing for me while your mind is quiet. _I want you to think for yourself._ Let your own thoughts dictate your actions, do you understand me? I want you to _think for yourself."_

And slowly, with trembling hands, Saskatchewan reached into his pocket and paused the tone.

* * *

 _…_ _I…._

 _...Am…_

 _…_ _What is….happening…?_

 _…_ _.It's…quiet…_

 _…_ _I...can…breathe…_

 _I can….I can breathe. I can…breathe. I can breathe, breathe in my own…rhythm._

 _I can feel-_

 _I can…feel._

 _I….guilt?_

 _Guilt._

 _I'm…I did something…bad._

 _I'm bad. I'm….a…bad…person._

 _…_ _I hurt... I hurt someone and I didn't care. I hurt…I hurt my brother._

 _I…I_ betrayed _my brother._

 _I didn't hurt him, did I? I just…turned him over…to the monster…that…that…_

 _No…no…no….no, please, no-_

 _NO-_

 ** _WHAT HAVE I DONE?!_**

* * *

"Edmonton, it's going to be okay-" Saskatchewan had planted both his hands on Edmonton's shoulders, trying to steady the city as his face slowly, oh so slowly, started to change, as the blank and vacant expression was slowly filled with…something. He looked into Saskatchewan's eyes, and behind those gleaming glasses, Edmonton's eyes were starting to fill with tears.

His mouth fell open, and a harsh croak came out, a mockery of words and language- as if he'd been desperately grasping for the words to say and then lost them, his language fumbled hopelessly out of his grasp. And those black armoured shoulders started to shake, to tremble, as he choked out a helpless sob without quite knowing what he was doing- or why. The tears started to trickle out of his eyes, guilt and pain and fear and confusion punching him in the gut all at once, bloody and visceral. And it left him feeling cold- chilled to the bone, the hole in his stomach feeling like ice. It wasn't the comfortable coldness he'd felt mere minutes earlier, either, the comfortable coldness that had enveloped him like a blanket and quashed all these little nagging voices and little whispering feelings.

Edmonton felt himself yearning for that coldness again, and he looked into Saskatchewan's eyes, seeing not a friend or a saviour or even an adversary. No, what Edmonton saw in those green pools was another tormentor.

"Why…" He croaked, shuddering and shoving the farmer away, "Why did…why…put it…give me back my- give it back. Give the- I want-" He was crying now, crying and letting the tears fall wherever they pleased- on his armour, on the floor, sliding down his cheeks and falling in trails. He didn't understand what was happening or **_how_** it was happening, what Saskatchewan had done to him or why. All he knew was that just when he thought his torment was over, someone else had stepped in to fill the void Corvus had left, and-

…And that…was an interesting thought, wasn't it?

Saskatchewan was talking again, saying all that shit, and Edmonton was so, so sick of people talking to him. He wanted everyone to shut the fuck up or leave him alone or die, in no particular order, which meant-

The second he raised the machine gun, the barrel visibly trembling as he did so, Saskatchewan's voice instantly fell silent. Edmonton was shaking, not with rage, but with…guilt? Greif? Pain? He didn't know. And more to the point, he didn't actually _care._

 _"_ _Just…just- JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!"_

The province was trembling, eyes locked on the machine gun, and rather than the rush of joy that the sight should have brought him, it just…it just made him…guilty. He should have felt a rush of pleasure and happiness at toying with the province like that, from using the weapon to bring fear to the enemy, but he just felt….sick and cold and hollow.

Edmonton let the gun in his arms sink back to his side, wanting nothing more than to drop it but petrified of making a loud sound. The legislature in the darkness was suddenly terrifying, and it just added a pinch of paranoia and fear he didn't need on top of his already-raging sea of emotions.

And all he could do was ask Saskatchewan the only question he could. The only question that seemed to matter to him.

 _"_ _Why?"_

Saskatchewan swallowed and took a nervous step forwards, placing his hands on Edmonton's shoulders again and bracing the city so he could look straight into those blue eyes. He didn't have the time he would have wanted to talk to the man, to try and calm him and reassure him; and based on his response, Saskatchewan's theory had been confirmed but he certainly did not feel even the faintest hint of victory. There was a deeply broken man behind Edmonton's eyes, a man who'd been imprisoned in a cocoon of hate and lies and poisoned with pain until it made him savage.

"Edmonton. Listen to me. I'm trying to help you, you and Alberta. And yes, Calgary….Calgary too. I need your help. You hate Corvus, yeah? After what he did to you and your brother, anyone would, trust me. I need your help to take Corvus down, and I have a plan for how to do that. I need you on my side as a man on the inside, to help me win Alberta's trust- As soon as she trusts me, I can…I've got a plan, okay? You have to trust me. I know…I think I can fix this."

Edmonton had let his head hang, listening for the first time to Saskatchewan's patter intently. He slowly lifted his head to look the province in the eyes, the weight of Saskatchewan's words seemingly affecting him.

"…Look." Edmonton said slowly, his voice and mannerisms strangely calm and detached, "There's a problem with that. And it's that I can't help you anymore. Not that I don't want to help you, but that I just…can't."

"Why not?" Saskatchewan said slowly and seriously, "You're crucial to my plan. I need a spokesman when Alberta finally does show up here. I need someone to back my corner and vouch for me, and more to the point, I need…I need help with this." He wanted to go on about what precisely it was that he needed, but Saskatchewan had long since decided that he needed to keep the master plan on a need-to-know basis.

Edmonton reached up and placed a gloved hand on Saskatchewan's shoulder, as if to steady himself. The motion caught the farmer off-guard, and the tension in the air amplified the small motion making it seem like something far more threatening than it actually was. So he flinched, something the city pointedly ignored; at this point he couldn't have cared less.

"Look. I don't know what the fuck it was you did to me, making my head go quiet like this, but…this isn't going to work. Corvus…you haven't…You…" And then his voice started to break, eyes filling with tears from a pain so fresh it was practically a gaping wound. But Edmonton, even at his weakest, sensed that what he had to say was important- so much so that it didn't matter whether his words were choked out between sobs or not.

"…You haven't been strapped to his rack. You don't understand what he's capable of. He demands…he demands…not loyalty, and not deference…loyalty to his _cause._ And his cause, it's, it's…it's…insane. And actually pretty…stupid…" The last part, the analysis of Corvus's motivations, was delivered in a voice that started weepy and serious and ended in complete incredulousness. Edmonton's eyes were finally open and he could finally think for himself; and he thought the very _idea_ of Alberta separating from the rest of Canada was hideously _stupid._

"But…That doesn't matter." He said finally, sniffling and putting on his most serious face, a face that only a capital could ever manage. "All that matters is that I…I can't deliver that right now. I don't…I'm not a good actor, Saskatchewan. And I can't fake that state of mind enough to pass. Maybe Cal could do it. _Maybe._ But I'm not my brother, and...and to be totally honest, you're completely screwed with what you've done to me. Corvus _will_ break you for this. You understand that, right? And he'll do it, not to ensure your loyalty, but for fucking _fun."_

Edmonton took a deep, shaky breath.

"…If you need my help that badly…You're going to need to...Well." He smiled, weakly, lopsidedly, looking Saskatchewan in the eyes.

"I'm going to have to…what?" Saskatchewan asked slowly, after a pregnant pause, a cold horror growing in his heart as he realized what it was that Edmonton might have been implying.

"You've got that frequency. You've got me here…." Edmonton said quietly, looking at the floor and closing his eyes. "…Just…Cal. If I…If we do this, if you….put me back under…Just…Save my brother. Please. That's all I ask. Just save my brother….Alberta will be fine. She…Corvus would never hurt her. He…He loves her, I think. I think he loves her like he loved his mother…But…Cal. Promise me you'll…Promise me we'll save him. Promise me."

Those blue eyes were full of tears, and Saskatchewan, heart heavy with horror and disgust at what he would need to do to Edmonton, couldn't bring himself to speak.

"I-" was all he managed to choke out, only for the city's face to contort into a snarl.

" **PROMISE ME** , SASKATCHEWAN! **_PROMISE ME YOU WILL SAVE MY BROTHER_** ** _!"_** Edmonton roared, dropping the gun on the floor with a thunderous clank and grabbing the slightly taller blonde by both shoulders, looking him straight in the eyes. And for that fraction of a second as the words were howled in his face, Saskatchewan saw a fury- a fury that was, for a brief moment, Edmonton's own.

"Do…I'll tell you what to do. But just…Just save my brother. That's all I ask of you, Saskatchewan. I don't…I don't matter anymore."

And there was nothing more that Saskatchewan could say.

"…I promise."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _So, yeah. I dunno if anyone's still reading this stupid thing, on account of the radio silence for a response last time around. Gotta say, I am not so hot on the idea of continuing to scream into the void like this, but whatever. This thing's hit 100k words, at least; I mean, that's something, right? 100k words of batshit insanity that'll surely help with the construction of my psychological profile ten years down the line._

 _Anyway, this is it. We're in the home stretch._

 _Also, go give Pigskin Mirror the once-over, eh? I actually updated that. It's gonna be shorter and more cohesive and sciency than this one._

 _Leave a review if you liked it, hated it, spotted a typo or whatever. Responses make me feel less like I'm shouting down a borehole straight into an empty aquafer. Or throwing words into the cloying black vaccum of outer space. You get the idea._


	46. Chapter 46

**Chapter Forty-Six**

* * *

 **"** **Give me one good reason to not beat the shit out of you."**

Manitoba hissed his words through clenched teeth, his outrage at what Saskatchewan had _dared_ to do written plain as day across his face. One huge fist was clenched in the front fabric of the farmer's shirt, and the other was held aloft threateningly over his head, like a scorpion's tail raised to strike. There was nothing but disgust in his eyes; how in god's name could his little brother justify what it was he'd done?

"Because I didn't do anything!" Saskatchewan protested, snarling and deciding that if Manny was going to be like that, he was going to land the first hit. His knee came up and connected with his brother's abdomen none too gently, knocking the breath out of his lungs with a loud OOF and loosening the Metis man's grip enough for Saskatchewan to shove him away.

"Manny, for fuck's sake, LISTEN TO ME!" Saskatchewan roared, "JUST- CALM THE FUCK DOWN! I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!"

Silence filled the cell in the wake of his shouting, but it seemed to have done the opposite of quell his brother's rage. He simply looked at him and quirked an eyebrow, opting to cut him off before he could begin to explain.

"Sasky, let me tell you what it is I saw. I saw my brother leave this cell with the _express fucking purpose_ of releasing someone from Corvus's fucking mind control, which he _allegedly_ did. But then I saw that same little brother waltz back into the cell with a dead-eyed Albertan right behind him, not pointing a fucking gun and taking orders from YOU. And you expect me to go along with ANYTHING you have to say? How the fuck can you stand there and claim to be **_any_** better than Corvus when YOU'VE DONE THE **_SAME FUCKING THING AS HIM?!"_**

Manitoba sprang to his feet and lunged at Saskatchewan, fully intent on smashing his brother's face against the floor. This entire situation was just…vile. And that Saskatchewan was attempting to _defend_ his actions, to DEFEND brainwashing Edmonton AGAIN- if it had even worked the first time!- it was just enough to push the Metis man into the same sort of headspace he'd been when it was Corvus's head on his chopping block.

The problem was that Mantioba's thinking was severely dated, and he'd forgotten one crucial thing that had happened over the intervening decades:

Saskatchewan, much like Alberta, had gotten way, WAY stronger.

Manitoba swung his fist- and realized he'd made a grave mistake.

Saskatchewan's face had frozen into an irritated-looking scowl, which on his little brother, was a clue that he was currently about to go utterly ballistic on someone, and the emotionless pokerface was not long for this world. And the fist that had been gunning for the farmer's face just…stopped. Saskatchewan merely lifted his own hand and grabbed Manitoba's arm by the wrist before it could connect with his face, those green eyes seeming to stare straight into the raven-haired man's soul.

Saskatchewan's fingers started to constrict around his wrist in a seething rage, starting to strangle the life out of Manitoba's hand even as he frantically tried to pull his arm away. And suddenly the tables turned, and it was Saskatchewan's turn to grab Mantioba's shirt and slam him into the wall of the cell.

"Now you listen and you listen _real good,_ **Manitoba** ," He hissed, his brother's full name drawing the attention of everyone present- including BC and Quebec, who'd long since been told to stay out of it, "Edmonton **asked me** to re-do his brainwashing. He ASKED ME. HE ASKED ME TO FUCKING DO IT! **DO YOU REALLY THINK I WANTED TO DO THAT TO ONE OF OUR KIND, MANITOBA?!"**

The echoes of his bellow echoed off the walls for a second, but Saskatchewan didn't let go of Manitoba's shirt; just kept staring right into his eyes.

"So here's what's going to happen, and you two better be listening too," He said, whipping his head around to glare at BC and Quebec, "Because I'm going to tell you all what the plan is, do you understand me? I'm going to explain what's going to happen exactly ONCE, and you're going to sit there and fucking listen to me, because WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS BULLSHIT!"

He stopped to pant out a single breath, and then hissed,

"Edmonton told me that Alberta is coming tomorrow. With Corvus. And Calgary. And the four of them are going to decide what to do with us. So if you WANT to be one of his brainwashed lackeys, _be my fucking guest_. It's late at night, we've all been through a lot, and if any of you want to get out of this with your sanity and free will intact, you'll shut the fuck up, listen to me, and then we are ALL going to get some fucking sleep. Because I can save Alberta AND our sorry asses, but I can't do this all alone."

The silence that filled the air after Saskatchewan's little explosion bordered on agonizingly painful. He looked at the floor, his anger simmering down to cinders. The point he'd been trying to make had been well and truly made, and without the rage to sustain him, the farmer found himself sinking back down into the mire of self-realization and frustration.

With a deeply weary sigh, he let go of Manitoba's shirt and backed away, looking up at all of them with an expression of sorrow. He looked like the weight of the world and all the fools stuck to it had been piled on his shoulders, and truly sorrowful for what he'd done to the city.

"I did what I had to do to Edmonton." He stated flatly, "I didn't have a choice. And you can help me with my plan or we can sit around and wait for Corvus to make us all his fucking slaves. Your choice."

* * *

"It's simple. We need a spectacle. You're not gonna like it, but this one actually hinges on Calgary. I need to get Alberta on my side, and from there, convince them all to spare us, and hopefully Slate…"

The cell floor was caked with a thin layer of dirt, dirt that Saskatchewan had spread evenly and was using to crudely illustrate his plan. Neither of the twins were master draftsmen, but it didn't really matter; it didn't take an art degree to illustrate a rescue.

"…By the way, and I'm sorry to interrupt…Where IS Edmonton right now?" BC asked, cutting Saskatchewan off before he could continue, which had the effect of coaxing an irate huff from the bearded farmer.

"Edmonton's upstairs somewhere. I told him to get some sleep; I'm honestly not sure if he's going to listen. I don't know who he answers to anymore; when he ordered me to re-scramble his brains, he basically…he told me to put the chanting back in his mind, enough to get him in tune with his people's wishes, and to restore his fervour for Corvus's cause…All that shit, but to just…I suppose, create a space in his mind where he could think for himself. I don't know. He's…I don't know who's side he's on. I think he's just on Calgary's side, and fuck the rest of the universe."

Saskatchewan sighed and turned back to the crude sketch on the floor.

"Anyway. The plan is pretty simple. Calgary loves nothing more than to put on a show. He lives for that Stampede of his, he LIVES to show off and perform. And I guess Corvus just twisted that into a man who loves to toy with others, to scare them instead of entertain them. So I'm gonna play off that desire to show off, because we need Calgary's expertise in putting on a show."

"Okay. Why?" Manitoba growled, "What kind of show are you putting on? I'm not singing for this crowd, and I don't think Quebec will either. I can rock with the best of 'em, but this lot isn't worth my time." He folded his arms impassively, looking Saskatchewan right in the eyes.

"We need to put on a show to get as many people watching as possible, Manitoba. We need to get as many people in the province watching as we can. Because I'm going to do what I did to Edmonton, initially at least, to all of them. I'm just…I'm not going to control them. I'm going to silence Corvus's frequency and the chanting and everything that's been forced into their brains, and I'm going to just let them think. But we need them to be watching first."

"…So wait. You. Are going to give a speech. In front of three million people." BC said incredulously, raising an eyebrow. "You. Mister Won't Make Announcements At The Dinner Table Because Thirteen People Is Twelve Too Many."

Saskatchewan took a deep breath.

"Yeah, that's…that's a snag in the plan. But I'll…I'll do it. I have to. I have to do it, for…for her." He said quietly, looking at the floor, "But you're right. That's why I need your help too, BC…because you actually know how to do that, and I just…don't."

BC nodded a few times. Anything to get them out of here alive.

Saskatchewan looked up at them all, surveying the raggedy collection of faces one final time and finally slumping back against the cage bars, feeling absolutely exhausted.

"We need to sleep." He mumbled. "I want…I need a couple hours of shut-eye. I don't even know how fucking long I've been awake…"

This assessment was met with a round of understanding nods, and Saskatchewan was secretly thankful nobody saw fit to ask him about the first phase of the plan, the phase where they would be putting on a show tailor-made to appeal to Cal's…predilections.

* * *

A/N:

 _Whoops, it's a short chapter that took forever again. Sorry about that. And I'm doubly sorry for that whining last go-around- hopefully that's a fence we can mend, you and I?_

 _Regardless, I know I keep saying this story's approaching the end, but I really mean it this time._

 _Next Time: Something sweet and fluffy and cute to cleanse your collective palettes, and then the train wreck kicks off for realises._

 _As always, leave a comment if you likes it, hated it, spotted a typo, or whatever._


	47. Chapter 47

**Chapter Forty-Seven**

* * *

The huge steel door flung open with a thunderous BOOM, jolting the cell's occupants awake none too kindly. Saskatchewan sat up and groaned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and trying to ignore the taste of his own breath as he pried his bleary green eyes open and forced them to stay that way. He had experience in waking up before the sun got around to it, and staying that way without coffee; not something that could be said of the others. BC and Quebec had already sunk back onto the floor, and from the look of it, they wouldn't be roused with anything short of an AK-47.

Edmonton skulked into the torture chamber and didn't bother with any taunts or threats, just locked eyes with Saskatchewan and hefted up his machine gun in a clear show of force. The farmer's heart sunk a little at the sight; but then, he had no idea what was Eddy's own free will and what was his orders. This, though, seemed to be pretty clearly in the latter camp; Edmonton simply unlatched the door and pointed at Saskatchewan, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

"Get moving. You've got some people upstairs that want to talk to you, flatlander."

Saskatchewan merely nodded, his brain still crawling out of its sleep-induced doldrums and back into the waking world. He wasn't sure if it was going to be firing on all cylinders when it came time to talk them all out of this corner, but he had no choice but to try. Edmonton unlocked the door to the cell and produced a pair of tempered titanium handcuffs, and the farmer rose to meet them. This was it.

The cold metal snapped into place, restraining his wrists behind his back and ensuring he would be vulnerable. But fear wasn't the emotion that weighed the most heavily in his heart. He took one last look over the occupants of the cell, swallowing a ball of tears and apologies that would have given the game away.

All Saskatchewan allowed himself was a single word, inaudibly mumbled more to himself than to them. If his plan failed, they were all as good as dead…and they would be cursing his name all the way to the gallows. And he wouldn't blame them in the slightest.

So as Edmonton marched him up the steps, the province whispered that single word to the ones he had left behind.

 _"_ _Sorry…"_

* * *

The weight in his stomach seemed to weigh down heavier and heavier with each passing step as he ascended the steps from the grotty basement into the light of the cafeteria and presumably the emerging dawn. Not that Saskatchewan particularly cared about that; he could only pray that Corvus hadn't brought his entire cabinet and all his MP's along for the ride, otherwise the farmer's aversion to speaking in front of groups might have got the better of him and doomed them all for certain.

His boots clacked on the marble floor of the cafeteria, each step adding to the growing sense of dread building in his chest. What was waiting for him at the top of the stairs? Alberta alone would be the ideal situation, but that was highly unlikely. And as he climbed that final staircase, Saskatchewan prayed. He prayed that he wouldn't clam up. He prayed that he wouldn't lock up. He prayed to the only god he'd ever known to get out of this alive, his pleas to that higher power flitting back and forth between Ukrainian and English, as prayers learned in one language invariably bled into the other.

The final word of all those prayers- амінь- he mumbled it as his foot struck that final step. And only then did Saskatchewan, the humble farmer, look up.

And boy, did he ever wish he hadn't.

Alberta stood on the other side of the fountain, her electric-blue eyes riveted on him, on his every motion, and there was a look of great suspicion on her face. But more than anything, she looked…a bit sad, almost. Sorrowful, but also definitely angry. He knew that look well. It was the look Alberta wore when she felt she'd been betrayed by someone.

Perhaps more important that his sister were her escorts. Corvus flanked her on one side, that fucking conniving half-smile of his fixed firmly in place on his hateful face. He had a hand planted firmly on his twin's shoulder, in a protective, almost fatherly way, and it made Saskatchewan want to spit. He was a vile waste of oxygen, and he found himself having to look at the floor in an effort to hide his hatred for the human. Alberta couldn't see his disdain for Corvus…though truthfully, he was certain she already knew.

And on her other side, glowering at him from under the brim of his hat, stood Calgary. Saskatchewan could barely recognize him, or at least the look in his eyes. The clothes were all fine; the same hat and boots and jeans and belt buckle, but none of the carefree cowboy attitude. There was nothing but hate and disdain for him and all he stood for in the city's eyes, and Calgary's grip on his revolver tightened. Saskatchewan noticed the odd detail of the machine gun slung over his shoulder- the strap on it appeared to be custom-made, with some hand-stitched embroidery that appeared to spell out J.A.S with a maple leaf above and below it.

Before he could finish pondering the mystery of the strap (or more accurately, reeling in terror at what might have been done to the prime minister) Alberta folded her arms and shattered the silence.

"…So let me get this straight, Sasky." She said flatly, "You defied us, you fought us, you _kidnapped my premier,_ _ **put him in a CAGE and held him there for HOURS while camped out in his house…**_ and NOW you want to **_JOIN US?!_** Give me one good reason I should actually believe you. One. Good. Reason."

Saskatchewan looked up, face blank. Not that it mattered. She could see the emotion he felt, could read him unlike anyone else on planet earth. They all saw a blank slate. She saw a man who was deeply afraid, disturbed, and angry. She saw right through his façade to the heart of his emotions, and there was nothing for him to hide behind.

So he didn't even bother. Green eyes locked onto blue, and he simply said,

"Because I don't want to lose you."

Alberta folded her arms, an eyebrow quirking. "That's it? That's seriously it? You DO know what we're trying to do here, right? How do I know you're actually in this with us, Sasky? How?"

Corvus held up a hand, interrupting the response that was already on the farmer's tongue with a few well-placed words. The slick politician was very much at the fore, a thin smile of victory dominating his features.

"I will say that I do appreciate your…sudden acquiesce to our cause. Your crimes against me are…mere personal slights, in the face of what you offer me now, mister Saskatchewan. I am merely human, but I am capable of forgiveness, after all. But I would like to clarify…by agreeing to join our cause, noble though it may be, you also agree to allow me to…ahm….re-educate your people. You understand this, yes?"

Saskatchewan's eyes widened and he gulped.

"I-"

"Excellent." Corvus said, his leering gaze turning fully predatory, "And you will also know, Mister Saskatchewan, that the reason I am even entertaining your words right at this moment is because you are, like it or not, already a member of our little rebellion."

"I'm- I'm WHAT?!"

"You are, I'm afraid." Corvus said calmly, the smile on his face widening, "And I will begin distribution of…ahm…promotional materials and other such things among your citizens within the foreseeable future. You did sign a treaty declaring yourself as a member of our rebellion, as did your sister British Columbia. That was a binding contract, in compliance with Canadian personification law. You've no choice but to follow us…or you won't after I've leveraged you for an audience with your premier. An audience which I'm sure he'll leave very much a **_changed man."_**

The smile on Corvus's faced was nothing short of terrifying. And worst of all, Saskatchewan knew exactly why. He'd signed that paper, what felt like a lifetime ago. He'd been pulled into this on more ways than one. His premier was going to fall to Corvus. BC's premier…and then, eventually, them. And then he realized something even more horrifying. Corvus might not even need to employ his frequency to brainwash himself and BC. After all, thought reform had been practiced all over the globe for centuries without the frequency; and there was no doubt in Saskatchewan's mind that Corvus was patient enough to allow for that and read up on the methods.

He felt the blood drain from his face when he realized just how truly fucking doomed they all were.

And as Alberta and Calgary attempted to come to terms with the fact that Saskatchewan had always been on their side, Corvus patted Alberta's shoulder fondly and looked at her kindly, almost…lovingly.

"Not to worry, my dear Alberta. I've seen to it that you'll not have to leave your twin behind when we go. I know how much he means to you, even if he is being a bit of an obstinate prig right at this moment. And your sister too, as we still need to get that pipeline to the coast, don't we?"

Saskatchewan wanted nothing more than to grab the filthy fucking human and hold his head under the water of the silent fountain before them until he finally gurgled his last facedown in the legislature he'd so despoiled. Everything about that ball of slime was just vile to him, not least of all the fact that he was _touching his twin sister._

Calgary's face was registering shock, and it took Saskatchewan a few seconds to realize why. He- the province of Saskatchewan- felt emotions just as strongly as his sister, this much was true; but unlike her, he almost never showed them. This was one of those rare exceptions. Hate, pure, unbridled hate, shone out from his face, his upper lip drawn back in a snarl and his jaw clenched, eyes narrowed to slits and hackles raised.

At the realization that he'd lost his composure, Saskatchewan's eyes widened for a fraction of a second, his pokerface flying back up- badly, but it was there. Corvus, for his part, seemed more amused than anything, and he simply smiled and extended a hand towards Saskatchewan.

"Well, well, well. Seems someone's a bit sniffy about being so easily outfoxed and outplayed. Well, my boy, you're lucky I'm such a charitable fellow. If you'll calm yourself, I'm sure we can come to some sort of an agreement. You see, I don't need you to love me, not at all. Your hatred is fine, as far as I'm concerned. All I care about is helping Western Canada free itself from the chains of servitude and slavery foisted upon us by those eastern parasites…."

He smiled, gesturing at Edmonton, who had stayed silent the entire time.

"Edmonton has informed me that you have something you wanted to…offer me. And I'll admit that I'm intrigued, Saskatchewan. So. What is this offer? What could you possibly have to bargain?"

Saskatchewan took a deep breath.

"…Quebec. Possibly Manitoba, I don't know if you count him as East or not (I certainly don't.) But I also have…a…proposition for you." He said quietly, staring straight at Corvus and straight at the incredibly impressed grin on the premier's face.

Corvus folded his arms, cocking his head and beaming.

"Well, well, well. It seems I've underestimated you, my boy. Bargaining with the lives of others, eh? I'm impressed. We may yet find common ground, you and I. But I already have possession of Quebec- so what do you propose we do with him, hmmm? How do you propose we deal with the hated French scum?"

Saskatchewan took a deep breath.

"…Do you know…of the Circus Maximus, of Ancient Rome, Corvus?" he asked quietly, looking at the floor. Shame. Shame was what was welling up in his breast now, shame and fear and sadness at what he was going to do. He was a monster for this. He was no better than Corvus, and Saskatchewan knew it. But it was his only hope. His only hope at saving his sister.

"Yes, I've heard of it. Great battles and fearsome gladiators, fighting to the death in their coliseum on the bodies of slaves. Why?"

Saskatchewan swallowed deeply.

"If I tell you…You will undo these handcuffs and let me leave this place with you as your equal and partner. And you will allow me to assist in the orchestration of my proposition. Those are my terms, Premier Corvus. Do you agree?"

Corvus hummed thoughtfully.

"Hm. Ah, I'll bite. Very well, my boy. I agree to your terms. Now tell me, what do you propose we do to the Frenchie, hmmm?"

And Saskatchewan looked up, looking right into his sister's eyes.

Alberta valued one thing above all else, and here he knew he was safe. Alberta would be his salvation. Alberta valued one thing- honesty. And she was standing there, standing there and privy to everything Corvus was going to say. And in this, he finally felt a shred of hope. Alberta would protect him. Alberta would keep him safe while he put the framework in place for her salvation. And with the idea firmly fixed in his mind of saving his sister, Saskatchewan cleared his throat.

"I propose we…Well. Calgary, I've been to the Stampede many times. I've seen the rodeo. You know how to put on a show, Cal. I'll give you that. A damn good show, to be honest."

There was a brief flash of something in the city's eyes. Something besides hate and rage. An ember of the old Cal, a flicker of pride. In times gone by, Cal would have spent a week crowing about how Saskatchewan had sung his praises, but with his mind and soul blunted by Corvus, all that Saskatchewan got was a flicker of emotion and the hint of a smile.

"And…I propose that you- we! I propose that we, um...stage a p-public….I propose that we stage a public execution."

The words hung in the deathly silence of the legislature for five seconds. Then ten. Then twenty. The hate vanished from all the eyes and faces to be replaced with bare-faced gaping shock. Alberta's jaw in particular flat-out dropped as she stared at her brother like he'd just turned into an alien without her knowledge.

Saskatchewan swallowed deeply. That was not the response he was hoping for. Even Calgary and crucially, _Corvus_ , looked rather disturbed at the suggestion.

"And, uh, um, uh- the reason- the reason- We'd be sending a message. A powerful message. We'd be declaring our independence in a dramatic fashion. And we could…look, you know how in ancient history, the Romans used to uh, pit gladiators against lions and stuff? Calgary, you've got…you've got bulls. You've got bulls, and bulls kill people in Spain-"

Corvus held up a hand, cutting Saskatchewan off. The initial shock had melted off his face, to be replaced by a small, fatherly smile. And he patted Alberta's shoulder, walking slowly around the fountain and up to Saskatchewan.

The province stiffened. Corvus was ten feet away. Then five. Then one. Then he was _right there, right next to Saskatchewan, and he was so close, and then he TOUCHED HIS ARM-_

The province instinctively flinches away from the contact, jerking fearfully out of Corvus's reach, and the premier merely met the reaction with an amused chuckle and a fatherly smile.

And then he held up something that made Saskatchewan's eyes widen.

A handcuff key.

"Come here, my boy. I'm not going to hurt you. There, see?"

And with that, he approached, undoing the lock on the cuffs with a small _click._

The titanium restraints clattered to the floor, and Saskatchewan almost instinctively rubbed his wrists with his free hand, looking at Corvus with a small amount of fear in his eyes. What was the premier playing at?

Then Corvus extended a hand, offering- of all things- a _handshake._

Saskatchewan's arm moved slowly and hesitantly, carefully taking the human's hand with no small amount of trepidation. He didn't start the shaking motion, merely curling his fingers around the underside of the human's palm, heart hammering in his chest. Corvus…he was smiling. He was smiling and it looked genuine.

Corvus was the one to shake his hand, looking right into Saskatchewan's green eyes.

"Well, well, well, my boy. I really did underestimate you. I wanted to break free from the parasites, but you? You're something else. You want to full-on _exterminate_ them."

Corvus hissed the word 'exterminate', his smile never once wavering.

"We'll discuss the details of the plan later, but rest assured, my boy, this is a plan I would most definitely like put into action within the month. I think you and I will be able to get along quite nicely. However…"

Corvus took a step forwards and grabbed the province's shoulder, pulling him in close enough to whisper into his ear, the smile on the premier's face never once wavering.

 _"_ _And rest assured, my boy, if you try to double-cross me at all, I will see to it that you are reduced to a hollow shell and your people a slave class for their betters. Do you understand me? Oh, and if you so much as breathe a WORD of what lurks in the basement to your dear sister, you will suffer DEARLY for it."_

And with that, Corvus straightened up and winked at Saskatchewan.

"Calgary, what is the soonest you can get a show put together?" Corvus asked, turning towards the city and adjusting one of his cufflinks.

"Forty-eight hours. A week if you want a really good one. Three if there's a flood I need to clean up first." Calgary replied, a strange lilt in his voice- definitely interested and also a little disturbed.

As Corvus walked away, Saskatchewan slowly and carefully released the panicked breath he had no idea he'd been holding.

This was it, then. Against all odds, the monster had acquiesced to his twisted offer. Now? Now he could save his sister.

Game on.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _If you're wondering why this chapter took so bloody long, that would be a result of me having the shittiest February of my entire fucking life. Yeah. Anything that could go wrong did go wrong, and it didn't leave me in much of a mood to write. Things still aren't much better, I'm still in Newfoundland and pining for home every minute I'm here, but whatever._

 _I'll keep writing._

 _Additionally, I looked into that Alberta Freedom Party lot, and uh, well. That puts me in an awkward position, because they really sound rather disturbingly like Corvus and his Reformationists. That's scary enough, but what's even scarier is that their rhetoric sounds rather appealing to my ears._

 _Yeah._

 _Anyway, leave a review if you liked it, hated it, or spotted a typo. Next chapter sometime soonish, I hope._


	48. Chapter 48

**Chapter Forty-Eight**

* * *

 _ **TWO WEEKS LATER**_

* * *

Shelly strode down the hallway, the fake sea-green serge of the Reformation Party buttoned tightly over her baby bump- and more importantly, her standard-issue .22 calibre Glock. The confidence in her stride was more thanks to her officer's training than anything else; she'd literally stuck her head in the lion's mouth and was hoping to emerge again with her husband in tow, even if she needed to open fire to do it. On the other hand, the Reformation party members she'd seen in this hellhole thus far seemed to have much larger weapons than her, usually slung casually and unprofessionally over their shoulders as they ambled by her.

And quite frankly, considering what they were doing here, it was just disgusting how upbeat and casual most of them seemed to be about it. Some were even joking and laughing, for Christ's sake.

They were holding hundreds of innocent people in a retrofitted two-floor warehouse on the outskirts of the city, with the topmost floor being holding cells, or less pithily, _fucking cages,_ and the bottom floor taking the form of several large spaces into which they would pack their captives and bombard them with hate and propaganda.

And of course, the endless, endless fucking drumming.

Shelly couldn't help but walk in time with it, one foot placed in front of the other in time with the faint, distant drumming that seemed to permeate the whole of the building. Not that it seemed to matter; everyone else she saw was walking just the same as her, in time with the drumming, the endless drumming…

A pair of rooky party members were walking down the hall in the opposite direction and chatting about something, and Shelly stiffened a little. They certainly seemed very excited for a pair of juniors- their rank indicated by the lack of silver chevrons on their arms.

"…He's actually here- no, really, the big guy himself-"

"No way- Oh, shit. Shh!"

She herself wore a fake uniform with no less than three of the little silver symbols, the three inverted chevrons just enough to get any underlings to leave her the hell alone. Or at least that was the results of Shelly's research into the Reformation party's customs; it had been a harrowing two weeks of study, planning, and breaking a fair number of laws limiting police power in situations like this.

Immediately following the expulsion of those…. _rats…_ from her home, Shelly had set to work trying to track down her husband. That hadn't proved an easy task; she'd been dismayed to discover that the Reformation party was handling the "re-education" of the alleged traitors; the Calgary police were very much kept in the dark about what was happening behind those closed doors. Instead, law enforcement was merely tasked with detaining and escorting the, quote, " _suspected enemies of the province_ " to a certain location, whereupon they were loaded onto busses by the Reformation party's members and whisked off to this building on the outskirts of town, apparently.

The relocation of the prisoners was only a recent development. From what she'd gathered, they'd been holding Keith and countless others in the Big Four building on the Stampede Grounds; but for some reason, two weeks ago, they'd transferred all the prisoners without a warning. Which had resulted in Shelly seriously embarrassing herself by bursting into an empty building in full uniform with gun drawn and badge in hand.

Thankfully nobody saw her do that, but that small mercy had been tempered by the fact that the sudden relocation had sent her straight back to square one.

Shelly had pulled some major strings to obtain this information, which had resulted in her doing a few things that were…ethically questionable. For example, abusing the police wiretapping system to listen in on a couple of phone calls between Party members. And a number of other things, all without a warrant and all thanks to the fact that the head of the investigation department had some…feelings for her.

So after two weeks of working, sewing, fretting, and spying, here she was, walking up a flight of steps to what the floorplans indicated was the "detainment level."

Two guards slouched in front of a pair of locked double doors, both of them looking bored and distracted- really, these Reformationists were doing a shit job of things. They'd just handed two random shmucks machine guns and told them to stand there. Shelly had no doubt she could disarm the both of them without having to so much as draw her pistol- one of them was so young she'd be surprised if he was legal to drink.

"Where is Keith Price?"

The question to the guards was sharp and crisp, and Shelly was grateful for her training for the thousandth time today. She had been drilled specifically in staying calm, rational, and collected during a crisis or a panic-inducing situation, as all other officers on the force were. This was a huge boon in situations like these, where her heart was hammering in her chest and she felt the urge to run away.

The two guards looked at her and then each other, one of them opening their mouth to ask precisely who she was and why she wanted to see that particular inmate, only for Shelly to fold her arms and arch a single, disapproving eyebrow.

"Excuse me. Did I ask for insubordination? No. You will bring me Mister Price, and you will do it right now….unless you'd rather I took the matter to my superiors."

The guard on the right's eyes darted down to the three silver chevrons on her arm and his eyes bugged out, snapping his arm up into a salute.

"I- oh, god- I'm so sorry, miss, I- uh- I – Mister Price? Klein- no, no, it was Keith! It was Keith! I'll get him right away, Miss- Please don't tell Premier Corvus, please don't-"

He immediately flashed an ID card at the lock, which beeped as the lock unlatched, and he shoved the door open with his side, pulling his gun off his shoulder as he went.

 _"_ _WHICH ONE OF YOU IS KEITH PRICE?!"_ The panicked greenhorn shouted into the darkened space beyond, a space which Shelly did her level best to peer into. Beyond those locked double doors lay unacceptable human misery, and Shelly's strong inclination towards justice left her enraged at the mere thought of it. But she hid her emotions well, even as the greenhorn continued to swear and repeat his question, screaming Keith's name over and over again into the silent darkness.

Finally, finally, she heard some scuffling in the other room- the click of several locks being frantically unlatched, the jangling of keys in nervous hands. The greenhorn swore at her husband, something which only deepened Shelly's scowl- " _Get your ass in gear, you worthless parasite"_ was not something she was willing to tolerate, and she briefly entertained the idea of introducing the little fuck to the business end of her Taser gun. See how many people he went around calling parasite with a couple thousand volts convulsing through his body.

Two pairs of shaky footsteps heralded the emergence of her husband several seconds before he finally emerged from the shadows, and as soon as he stepped into the light of the hallway, Shelly's breath caught in her throat.

Keith's head was hung low, looking at the floor as though he was afraid to make eye contact. And it was easy to see why. They'd put him in an orange prison jumpsuit, the fabric stained and loose on his frame. Taken away his uniform and badge, and when he did finally lift his head to look back at the guard, Shelly had to swallow a throatful of tears.

There was a look on his face and in his eyes that was nothing short of haunted. He looked empty and broken; barely a glimmer of his old fire burned in those blue eyes. They were sunken in deep, sleep-deprived pits, and the tatters of a beard were starting to grow on his unkempt face. But most of all, it looked like her husband had simply given up.

His eyes widened a little when he caught sight of her, a brief flash of hope in his eyes- and then, to Shelly's horror, those widened eyes and that little flash of hope…just vanished. The face that had held the briefest spark of hope not a second before just emptied of all emotion, and Keith, his face utterly blank and empty, let his head drop again, utterly silent.

Shelly swallowed. It….it was almost like…like the mere sight of her had broken his spirit.

She took another deep breath, forcing the face of a composed and heartless Inner Party member back on her face. She was part of Corvus's inner circle for all the guards knew, and she had to act like it.

"Excellent. Is there anywhere I can question this man? He has information that is absolutely critical to our plans, and I need to question him at once."

This was met with a pair of raised eyebrows, and Shelly fought to keep her composure and maintain eye contact. Keith still hadn't reacted to this statement; he was still staring at the floor. But just as one of the guards opened his mouth to ask why she didn't already know, Shelly's brain finally spat out an excuse.

"I was called down here from Edmonton on very short notice and I haven't had time to get acquainted with this facility. Now, unless you two want me writing you up for insubordination, would you mind? You must have somewhere to question…prisoners."

There was the slightest pause as she barely managed to avoid saying "witness' or "suspect"- possibly both at the same time, and neither one the correct answer. Regardless, the guards seemed to buy it, and one of them offered her his keycard, gesturing down the stairs.

"Third door on the left's for questioning…make sure it's not in use, though I dunno why it would be. It's actually a converted office, so, like…it's kinda shoddy soundproofing."

Shelly nodded in approval, swiping the keycard out of the guard's hand and turning around so the greenhorns couldn't see the look of grief on her face.

"Excellent. This is exactly what I needed. I'll be sure to make a note of your compliance when it comes time to conduct layoffs." She said curtly, forcing the tremble out of her voice as she started to frogmarch Keith down the stairs, guilt and sorrow at her husband's broken spirit twisting daggers made of ice straight into her chest.

* * *

The hallway was nearly silent, save the humming of the ventilation system and the distant, muffled sounds of drumming and screaming. Shelly flashed the keycard at the lock nervously, heart hammering in her chest as it beeped entirely too loudly for the near-deathly silence they were swaddled in. She pushed the door open and pulled Keith inside, slamming it tight behind them- and of course, dumping the two of them into pitch darkness.

There was a soft _thud_ in the blackness, but it wasn't the sort that Shelly worried about. That was Keith, certainly, but it wasn't loud enough for his entire body to have fallen over, so scrabbling about along the walls to find the fucking lightswitch still took fucking precedence-

As her fingernails scrabbled across the painted sheetrock, Shelly failed to notice the second sound in the darkness. It was almost silent- really, it would have been quite easy to overlook, were it not for the smallest little thing. A hitch in Keith's breathing- a faint pause, a nearly silent gasp; and this continued on for several moments, the noise not registering in Shelly's mind until Keith went and sniffled.

Her short fingernails finally hooked onto something that felt a hell of a lot like the cover for a switch, and Shelly flipped the light on, heart seizing with momentary realization of what Keith was doing. But she didn't have time to tend to that straight away- the door they'd shoved their way through was still unlocked and anyone with any calibre of gun could just wander in whenever they pleased. She wasted no time in slamming it closed and then locking it tight, finally able to turn her attention back to where it truly mattered.

Under the faint buzz of the harshly bright halogen lights, Shelly could see her husband had fallen to his knees. Keith- her husband, the strong, gentle man she knew and loved-was kneeling on the rough office carpet, shoulders shaking softly as he cried. He was trying his damndest to be quiet about it- aside from the odd gasp or sniffle, it was basically impossible to tell that he was even crying at all- but then, he had his back to her, head hung low; there was nothing for her to see.

Shelly found herself on her knees in front of her husband, reaching out to cradle his chin gently so she could lift his head, could look at his face. Her heart ached with each little sniffle, cracking more and more at the rough stubble on his normally meticulously-shaven face. He was a mess, a wreck, and it was those damn Reformationists that had done this to the man she loved. Shelly found herself swallowing a lump of her own tears as she lifted Keith's head to look into his eyes- and therein she just saw nothing.

"…Keith?"

Her voice was soft, trembling, afraid. She didn't know what she was doing anymore, she didn't have any idea how to get them out of here alive. She'd brought them into this room in the vain hope that maybe, maybe Keith might know how to get out of here, might have some idea that could possibly save them.

"Keith…oh, Keith…say something. Please…."

Her husband just closed his eyes and let out a single, shaky breath.

"Keith, baby, listen to me, I'm here to- I'm gonna help you, I promise-"

 _"_ _Shut up."_

His eyes snapped open, a frostiness in his tone that startled Shelly to the point where she almost toppled over. She pulled her arm back, her husband's head raised under his own power and glaring right at her.

Keith rose to his feet, wobbling and shaking and looking lost in a void between hate and tears. He was looking at his wife with an expression of betrayal, an expression of pain and frustration and impotent rage.

 _"_ _You- You're not- YOU'RE NOT MY WIFE."_

Shelly blinked. "What are you-"

" **SHUT THE FUCK UP**. YOU'RE NOT MY GODDAMN WIFE. _HOW MUCH DID THEY PAY YOU, YOU SICK FREAK?! HOW MUCH?! OH, I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE UP TO, YOU FUCKING REFORMATION SCUMBAGS! YOU'RE NOT MY WIFE, YOU_ _ **FUCKING BITCH!"**_

Tears had started to stream down Keith's face, and he was shaking, backing away from Shelly, shaking his head and grinding his teeth. His eyes were narrowed at her, and he was so, so angry; there was a look of clarity in his eyes, like he'd finally figured out what the truth was.

Shelly rose to her feet, slowly, confusion and fear in her eyes. They'd mentioned something about shoddy soundproofing in this room- if he kept going like this, they were going to get caught. She needed to quiet him down, and fast- before he completely blew their cover.

"Keith, I don't know what you're talking about- It's me! It's Shelly- I'm here to rescue-"

"BULL. FUCKING. SHIT. YOU'RE NOT SHELLY. SHELLY IS AT HOME, WITH MY SON, AND WALT. SHELLY IS SAFE. _MY SON IS SAFE._ _ **WALT, SHELLY, AND JASON ARE FUCKING HOME AND FUCKING SAFE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!? AND YOU? YOU'RE SOME IMPOSTOR THEY FOUND TO TRY AND GET ME TO FUCKING CRACK!"**_

Denial. Denial of all reality, denial of his situation; Keith was buried so deep in his own denial that he didn't even WANT to know what was real anymore. The look of crazed triumph in his eyes was enough to send a cold shiver down Shelly's spine- She'd seen that look before, in convicts who tried to hang themselves before a trial, and most notably, in the eyes of a schizophrenic man off his medication.

"Keith, how the hell can I convince you that it's me, for crying out loud it's ME- and please, please stop shouting, they're gonna catch us-"

"I DON'T FUCKING CARE! YOU'RE NOT SHELLY! YOU'RE NOT MY FUCKING WIFE, DO YOU HEAR ME?! HOW MUCH DID THEY PAY YOU, BITCH?! HOW FUCKING MUCH?! BET THEY PAID FOR THE SURGERY TOO, JUST TO MAKE EXTRA SURE YOU'D LOOK LIKE MY SHELLY SO I'D GET ALL COZY WITH-"

" **KEITH PRICE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN TO ME!"**

Silence filled the room in the wake of Shelly's roar, as Keith and Shelly sized each other up. Shelly was shaking; she was exhausted, frustrated, and not in the mood for this shit.

"Fine. I'm not Shelly. But if I'm not Shelly, then why in god's name do I remember arresting you for public intoxication the night we first met?"

Keith stiffened, eyes going wide.

"What-"

"Oh, I remember the whole thing, which is really weird, _because I'm Not Shelly._ I remember being on-duty and coming up to a group of rowdy pilots who were hopping from one bar to another and singing something by Lenny Kravitz at the top of their lungs-"

Keith's eyes widened.

"-And there was this one young man in that group, about my age. A rookie pilot who'd just gotten his license that day; just like me and my badge a week earlier. And I remember that pilot telling me he thought I was really pretty in what he _thought_ was a quiet tone of voice, and then following up that heartfelt flattery with the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my entire life."

Shelly walked up to her husband and looked him square in the eye.

"And you know what that was, Keith Price? You know what that man said to me? He turned around as far as he could while I was putting handcuffs on him and cheerfully slurred, "I just got my pilot's license…wanna join the mile high club with me?"

Keith turned bright red, his eyes bugging out.

Shelly was right up next to him now, and she reached up and undid the buttons on her fake uniform, letting Keith see the officer's utility belt that was hidden underneath, crammed with all of the tools of her trade in matte black. Let him see the gun, the tazer, the cosh, the cuffs. And perhaps most importantly, she let Keith have a good long look at the slight bulge of his unborn child, the one that her hand-sewn fake uniform was tailor-made to hide completely.

First she produced a small leather rectangle, about the size of a wallet, which she flipped open to reveal a shining golden badge, her name and rank laser-etched into the richly enamelled bronze. Shelly's badge; one of her most treasured possessions. And she let him stare at it for a good five seconds in complete silence, as if daring him to try and argue with the hard proof being shown to him right before his eyes.

This silent display had a profound effect on Keith. The story had brought an embarrassed flush to his cheeks; the badge had cooled his complexion to a sickly pale colour, a lost look in his eyes.

Shelly reached down to her belt and pulled off the second thing, and held it up so he could see. It was a small silver-coloured handcuff key, and this one wasn't her trying to prove a point.

Keith had been bound with his arms behind his back up until that point, and rather than doing what most officers would have done and gone around behind, Shelly opted to simply crowd right up against him silently, wrapping her arms around him as she reached back and blindly groped for the hole.

"I- You- You have- a key?" He spluttered as she slotted the tiny titanium piece into the lock, more from shock and confusion than actual curiosity.

"Handcuffs usually have universal keys, yeah, depending on what batch and branch is using 'em. I had a hunch these crow-fuckers wouldn't have cuffs of their own and would be borrowing them off the police….meaning my key would still work." Shelly explained calmly, flinging Keith's unjust bindings aside and taking a step back to look her husband square in the eyes.

Keith held up his newly-freed hands, rubbing at his tender wrists almost automatically; it was hard to tell what was going on in his head, especially considering his face was still stubbornly blank, a state which persisted for two entire seconds. And two full seconds in an atmosphere of uncertainty and tension can seem like two life terms, back-to-back in Bowden Penitentiary.

Instantly, any tension or fear that was coiling in Shelly's gut shattered as she found the upper part of her body wrapped in the death grip of a chokingly tight hug from the man standing before her. Keith was crying her name and sobbing in sheer _relief,_ cradling the woman he was pretty sure was his wife like she was the only parachute on a plane that was falling back to earth.

Shelly reached up and caught him by the sides of his head, using her thumbs to brush a few teardrops from Keith's torrent off his cheeks, taking a few seconds of time they really didn't have to just….look into his eyes. To just be with her husband again.

It was faintly surprising to her when Keith himself mirrored her gesture, his huge, soft thumb swiping a tear off her cheek, tears she hadn't realized had started to fall.

It was Shelly who pulled him in for the kiss, their lips meeting briefly but firmly. They pulled back, a faint smile of relief dancing on Shelly's face as she came to grips with the situation. Keith was in her arms. Keith was _safe._

"I- Oh, GOD, Keith, do you have ANY idea what kind of hell it's been trying to find you?!" She whispered, swallowing a lump of traitorous tears, "Two weeks. Two weeks and I've probably stressed the poor baby out just as much as me. God, Keith, you don't even know- I had to get that old hag next door to sew me this fake uniform, I had to wiretap like twelve people's phones without getting caught, I was camping out in a ghost car for three days-"

The words came spilling out of Shelly in a torrent; all of her work, all of her effort and planning, and finally, finally it had all paid off. She was still afraid, the prickling discomfort and fear still burning in her chest like a white-hot ember, but she'd found their hostage and now she only had to get out of the area with him.

 _"_ _Sh…Shelly…"_

"I just- I couldn't, I couldn't- You're not a criminal, you haven't done _anything_ wrong- This whole place is wrong, it's so horrible- Keith, I swear I'm going to torch this place as soon as you're home and safe-"

The words were just babble, a stream of nonsensical feelings and thoughts and pent-up emotion all spilling out in this one moment of triumph. Shelly knew there was a reason she'd pulled her husband into this little questioning room, she knew there was something they needed to do, but for some reason she couldn't be fucked to care.

It was the sensation of a hand coming to rest, ever so gently and lovingly, on her shoulder. One hand on her shoulder, one hand on her baby bump, and both her husband's eyes looking right down into hers. Keith was still crying, naturally; Shelly didn't want to even begin to imagine what he'd been through over the past two weeks.

But she'd wiretapped the phones of several high-ranking Reformation Party officials. She knew full well what they were doing here to innocent people being held without trial for trivial crimes.

So it really didn't surprise her when the look in Keith's eye gleamed savage, and he replied in a shaky, loving stammer:

"…We…when _we_ torch this place." He said definitively, the edge in his voice and the tears in his eyes telling Shelly everything she needed to know. The Reformation party had crossed the line about a thousand miles ago, and it was high time for someone to stand up and protect the people of Calgary.

She let her fingers entwine with Keith's own, pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

"Yeah. When WE burn this place to the ground, flyboy. But first, we gotta get you outta here. And, uh…Look, they never assigned me to the hostage squad for a reason. Do you know a way out of this place? I got in, but I'm pretty sure the whole "I'm transporting this prisoner" shtick isn't gonna fly if I try and load you into the ghost car I really shouldn't have signed out from work, but hey, I did it anyway. For some reason nobody's been at the office or the station this week. Anyway, do you know some way out of here?"

She looked at him with an expression that was midway between pleading and businesslike, and Keith just locked up completely, an ice-cold chill seeping into his stomach, his bones, his veins, his heart. At those words, at Shelly's admission that she didn't have a plan for getting them out, Keith Price froze up completely.

"- _You mean to tell me that you broke about a dozen laws on police surveillance, stole a squad car, unlawfully tapped phones, sewed up a dummy uniform, marched in here brazen as you please, and_ _ **you have no idea how we're going to get out of here?!"**_

"….Uh, well, I mean-"

" _SHELLY WE ARE GOING TO FUCKING DIE. WE'RE GOING TO DIE. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THEY DO TO PEOPLE WHO TRY TO ESCAPE-"_

Keith stopped whisper-shouting just as abruptly as he'd started, because they both heard the same sound coming from down the hallway at the same moment. And worse, it was coming _towards them._

Boots. Shoes. A bunch of people, _coming their way._

 _"_ _-This is the room, is it? There's a table, I hope…"_

An imposing, ministerial, professional voice that both of them had heard a thousand times before echoed down the hallway, and Keith and Shelly both froze.

That voice belonged to none other than Premier Corvus.

 _"_ _Yes, sir. This is the interrogation room you requested….Strange, the log entry indicates it's occupied right now….probably just a glitch or something."_

Both pairs of eyes fell on the door to a small observation room with a large pane of one-way glass inset into the wall next to it, and then at each other. That door, Shelly knew, wasn't an exit. It was little more than a glorified closet.

Premier Corvus himself was here, and he wasn't alone.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _-"_ _Ghost Car" is a Canadian slang term referring to an unmarked police vehicle, usually used to dole out speeding tickets to unsuspecting motorists._

 _OH HEY LOOK SHELLY'S BACK AND SO'S KEITH. YAY AREN'T WE ALL EXCITED? I CERTAINLY AM. BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN NEXT AND IT WILL BE FUN._

 _Also, apologies to the Nunavut fans out there. Here's some Word Of God Canon for ya, because I've always wanted to do this: Nunavut mentioned his grand plan to save Alberta to the Northwest Territories and promptly found himself grounded for a week. Probably a good thing, the smol Inuit child is too precious to get torn to shreds in this clusterfuck._

 _But getting back on topic: I bet you thought I'd abandoned this fic, eh? Heh! Not flippin' likely. I'm 116k words deep in this pit and I'm not stopping till I dig clean through to China or finish the story, whichever comes soonest._

 _As for this chapter, it was originally going to be a lot longer- like, probably 6k to 10k words- but I decided to split it up into two chunks to A) buy me some time because, barring a few edits, the second part is basically ready to go, and B) it worked better as a standalone chapter anyway._

 _My endless love and gratitude to anyone who's still reading this train wreck even after my extended hiatus._

 _If you liked it, hated it, or want to tell me about a typo, please **leave a review** and let me know your thoughts! _

_I can't make any promises for the next chapter but it'll be soonish._


	49. Chapter 49

**Chapter Forty-Nine**

* * *

 _"_ _-This is the room, is it? There's a table, I hope…"_

The echoing voice startled the couple out of their reverie, and it was Keith who put two and two together with frightening speed. His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates to match his wife, and then both of them locked eyes on the door inset into the nearest wall. The one leading straight into the observation room, a little antechamber set apart from the interrogation chamber by the huge sheet of mirrored glass set into the wall, about three feet off the ground.

The footsteps were getting closer, and it wasn't just one person- it was a group of them.

"Fuck-" Shelly hissed, grabbing Keith's wrist in a deathgrip and pulling him towards the second door. _Please don't be locked, please, please, please-_

Shelly grabbed the doorhandle and yanked it, a wave of relief crashing over her when the door gave way to them instead of remaining stubbornly locked. She shoved Keith inside none too kindly and then leaped in herself, closing the door and locking it the instant before the interrogation room's main door opened.

"Oh, fuck me-"

Keith was looking around the room in a panic, gesturing silently at the three darkened walls, the pane of glass, and the sum total of zero doors on their side of the glass that would let the couple escape. They were trapped in the dimly-lit observation room, and Shelly's breath caught in her throat when she saw just who it was walking into the room.

Corvus.

Premier Corvus himself strode confidently into the room, sweeping his eyes disinterestedly over the pane of two-way glass and causing both Shelly and Keith to suck in a breath through clenched teeth. For _Premier Corvus Himself_ was staring _straight at them._ It was only by the grace of god and the two-way glass that they were still hidden; as far as the premier was aware there was nothing behind the mirrored glass. But he was so close, so terrifyingly close; they could see straight into his coal-black eyes, could see the moles that had always been so lovingly airbrushed out of publicity photos by his staff. Corvus himself was staring straight at them, and if he'd tried for the doorhandle, they would have died. Shelly glanced at her husband, petrified the man was going to speak, because she had no idea how good the soundproofing in this room was and-

And then Keith went white as a sheet and slowly lifted his hand, a single, trembling finger pointing at someone Shelly really did NOT want to see.

"…This…operation of yours, Premier…with all due respect, this is…this doesn't seem fully legal."

The voice- _they could hear him speaking through the glass, fuck-_ belonged to none other than Chief Morrison himself, who sounded and looked a bit confused and vacant. Shelly and Keith had by this time shuffled themselves so their backs were pressed flush against the far wall in terror. So it was only natural then for Shelly to both stiffen and try to burrow back even farther into the wall when the Chief of Police, her commander and boss, swept his thousand-yard stare across the mirrored glass pane, momentarily making eye contact with her, albeit unknowingly.

Because the look in the chief's eyes was far too vacant, far too soulless and empty for what it should have rightly been; and to compound the situation, he opened his mouth, as if to ask Corvus if the room was empty, his eyes flicking over to the door and their fucking doom-

"Of course it's legal, Morrison. I'm the one in charge, I make the rules. What we're doing here is perfectly legal. Don't question my authority, fool. I give the orders, you follow them. Am I understood?"

Corvus's reply was swift, sharp, and slightly muffled by the glass, and Keith looked like he was going to be sick. He looked down at his wife with a despairing face, trying to show her with just a look the suffering words like that had caused him-

But she wasn't looking at her husband. She was looking at her Chief, and the sudden dimming of his eyes as he merely nodded and turned away from the glass.

He was just following orders.

The look of sheer outrage on Shelly's face as she looked at her husband was one she attempted to compound with a handful of obscene and angry gestures, her fingers curling into claws as she flailed silently in the air, wanting to scream so badly at the sheer injustice being perpetrated here. She wanted to fucking nail the premier with her Taser gun and keep zapping until the bastard fucking caught fire. This was _wrong._ And more than being morally wrong, _it was also totally fucking illegal._

Keith, for his part, attempted to communicate his frustration and pain with a battery of similar motions, all mimed silently and pointing at Corvus; but both were cut short by the arrival of two newcomers into the room.

As the chief took his seat, the couple both froze in position, eyes agog and staring at the two men who walked in, flanked by an _actual_ high-ranking Reformation Party member brandishing a clipboard.

The two men were tall and roughly the same height; the first had worn a somewhat old and faded Oilers jersey, clearly well-loved and well-used; he didn't even bother to look their way or even greet the room's occupants, just following the woman with her clipboard to near the head of the table and taking a seat opposite Chief Morrison. He reached up and nonchalantly adjusted his glasses, then made a pointed show of looking anywhere besides Corvus.

The second man came right behind him, slouching along with hands in the pockets of his jeans. He was one of the few guys who could really pull off the cowboy look, and he was wearing a damn white cowboy hat at the start of September anyway for no particular reason. But then, the man with the white hat and the belt buckle….paused.

He didn't really stop walking, just lifted his head up straight as he walked by the one-way glass, one cold, calculating blue eye locking directly onto first Shelly's eyes, then Keith's. It was like he could see straight through the glass, like he knew for a fact they were there and knew for a fact they were watching and listening. He glanced over at Corvus, and, seeing the man distracted by the contents of a briefcase he'd brought with him, turned his head just the slightest bit more so the couple could see both his eyes.

And then he winked at them.

Shelly clapped a hand over her own mouth, eyes locked on the man in the cowboy hat as he casually ambled to a seat on the opposite side of the table to the other three, so that he was sat next to the dead-eyed chief of police. He didn't even spare so much as a backwards glance, just walked to his chosen seat, pulled it out, and took it.

Keith had gone white as a sheet and was shaking like a leaf, fully convinced the cowboy hatted man was about to open his mouth and rat the pair of them out to Corvus-

 _"_ _I'm glad you all found the time in your busy schedules for this little rendezvous, especially considering what's to happen tomorrow…Mister Calgary, how prepared are you for the show?"_

Corvus, that was Corvus speaking, Corvus leading the discussion as the woman with the clipboard took notes from her seat next to the premier; and the man in the cowboy hat, the man who somehow knew they were there or- (or perhaps, perhaps he was just winking at his own reflection?!)- He opened his mouth to rat them out-

Keith had already sunk to the floor by the time that the man- Mister…Calgary, apparently, which was an odd name (that for some reason neither of them really seemed to be too terribly bothered about), started to speak.

"Yeah, Yeah. We're right on schedule. Managed to get the whole show drafted up on day one, no thanks to you."

The snappiness in Calgary's tone surprised everyone, eavesdroppers and the meeting's members alike. He sounded….harsh, and angry, and…he was talking back to Corvus.

Shelly and Keith shared a look of mutual shock and confusion. Who the fuck was this guy? What the hell was he doing, talking back to Corvus himself with that look of hatred in his eyes? The man in the cowboy hat seemed to glance their way for a fraction of a second, a heart-stopping split second in which Shelly was all but certain he was going to sell them out. But that didn't make sense, because why would he help Corvus when he was looking at him with such contempt-

"Yeah. Your little thing about insisting I jam a speech by Saskatchewan in the middle of the show…that really threw off our plans. You're just lucky that we had a gap to fill between Slate's set and Canada's set. He can blab over that."

Corvus just smirked. "That's excellent, Calgary, but Saskatchewan won't be doing any such thing. Isn't that right, Edmonton?"

This was the moment when Keith's eyes went wide. Because, Canada? Saskatchewan? He knew them both well. He knew all the provinces, he'd flown them all across the country. Shelly was looking at him helplessly, waving her arms for him to explain. But he couldn't tell her. He couldn't tell her the terrible truth that they were bearing witness to, the terrible plans that were being discussed openly and freely not five feet away from them.

"That's right." Edmonton said, cutting off Calgary before he could really lose his temper, "I'll be giving a speech instead." And the way he spoke, the certainty in his words….Shelly had learned a lot about interrogations, and human behaviour, and she could tell that he…that _Edmonton,_ was hiding something from Corvus. The way he was avoiding eye contact, the way he was nervously shifting in his chair- that…man, knew something and he didn't want to share it with the premier at all.

But it seemed that two of the people in that room were in fact personifications, like the ones her husband had occasionally spoken of; the cowboy, he was her city's personification, then? Shelly snorted a little, despite herself. Yeah, right. If that jerkass cowboy thought he represented the city she was sworn to protect, then he had another thing coming.

Outside the blacked-out observation room, Calgary was balking at the bait-and-switch.

"Okay, fuck this. I'm confused. Who's giving the goddamn speech? I need to know, because any confusion could fuck up the whole show completely." He folded his arms and scowled, directing a harsh glare between Corvus and his brother.

Edmonton got to his feet, letting out a small sigh.

"Cal, calm down. Corvus assigned me the job of watching over Saskatchewan to make sure he didn't try to leave or try anything funny that could potentially wreck our plans. The reason you made a spot for Saskatchewan to say a few words is so that he wouldn't try anything more aggressive- he thinks he's getting exactly what he wants, and so there's no need for him to try anything else."

Calgary groaned. "Okay, so basically what you're saying here is that I made a hole in my show so you two could double-cross Saskatchewan while he's trying to double-cross us. Any particular reason we haven't just shot him through the heart yet?"

The oddly specific mention of the heart raised an eyebrow on Chief Morrison's face, and Edmonton simply glared at his brother, but opted not to carry the conversation any further.

Corvus just rolled his eyes.

"Yes, actually. There's a damn good reason for that, and that reason is dear Alberta. I shudder to think what she might do if she found out that we had simply executed her twin brother. She would certainly be very angry, and not to mention, it would only delay a large component of my plan, which is to include BC and Saskatchewan in our union when we declare our independence. Shooting him instead of inducting him into our fold would be a poor strategic decision, especially since we can leverage him as a hostage once I've ensured he's on our side. Any other questions?"

When he received no reply from the tableful of stone-faced people, Corvus stood up and nodded, moving aside so he could scoot his chair back into its proper place.

"Glad we've got that all sorted. Now, Miss Diane, you mentioned that you were still holding Canada's pilot captive here?"

Keith sucked in a breath between his teeth and looked at his wife helplessly. Shelly met his gaze, slowly and carefully unbuttoning her fake uniform and pulling something off her belt. And in the half-light of the darkened observation room, Keith had to stifle a second gasp. Because not only had his wife drawn her gun, but she'd actually brought her full kit. A cosh and a tazer were shoved into his hands, and Keith found himself shaking. The look of fiery resolve in his wife's eyes was enough to melt steel, and he had no doubt that she wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger if it meant getting them out of here.

Shelly moved away from the wall and edged her way towards the door, slowly and silently, hoping against hope that Corvus's crew would just leave and let her and her husband escape.

Which was when the main door to the interrogation room flew open with a thunderous slam, and a young man in the Reformation garb burst through, wide-eyed and out of breath.

"INTRUDERS! WE'VE GOT- heh, hah, oh fuck,- WE'VE GOT INTRUDERS IN THE BUILDING!" He shouted, waving his arms helplessly and looking at the gathered faces.

"So?" Said Corvus, seeming almost bored or disinterested by this information, "Shoot them if you see them. Simple as that. If you see any heroism on your watch, shoot them."

When Shelly heard those words, her blood turned to ice in her veins. They had to act. They had to act fast, to do SOMETHING, because if she didn't get Keith out of here NOW, they were both going to die.

"NO! YOU DON'T- Listen, they're wearing one of our uniforms! We have them on camera escorting someone from the upper detainment area, and they're in THIS ROOM _RIGHT NOW-"_

Shelly flung the door open with a cacophonous bang, gun already loaded and ready to fire, and immediately decked the young man square in the face with her elbow.

"C'MON, KIEITH, LET'S **GO,** ** _GO GO!"_** She roared, bounding out of the interrogation room with a vague idea fixed in her head of her husband following her out of this hellhole to safety. She would have started sprinting and not stopped until she reached the parking lot right that second had Keith himself not replied with a strangled cry.

She spun around, back thumping into the hallway wall and gun already raised and aimed- and then, for a fraction of a second, Shelly's brain jammed completely as she realized who exactly she was pointing the gun _at._

"Officer Price. _Put that gun down and put your hands up."_

Chief Morrison had sprang to his feet the instant the door had flung open, and now had her husband in a headlock, his own gun out and aimed at her. When it came to strength, Morrison far outstripped Keith- he was a man who believed in leading by example, and as a result, the police chief's daily workout regimen kept his muscles in tip-top shape even into his late fifties. Keith was struggling, thrashing his limbs and desperately trying to smack the gun out of Morrison's hand, the gun that was pointing right at his wife and his unborn child.

Shelly's aim didn't so much as waver. The end of her handgun wasn't even trembling. Her trained hands held the deadly weapon steady, the end of her glock trained silently and defiantly on Morrison's forehead.

"I am not leaving without my husband, Morrison. And if you think I'm just gonna put my hands up like a good little girl and bend my knee to Corvus, you've got another fucking thing coming. Let me and Keith go."

Her voice didn't waver, the tension in the air so thick it could have been cut with a knife. Her finger curled around the trigger ever so slightly, a small motion that Morrison's eyes locked onto instantly. That was a threat, and Shelly knew it full well.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Price. You've gone rogue and you're no better than a criminal at this point. Put your gun down and your hands up."

He seemed almost weary of having to say that, the look in his cold, empty eyes one of emotional exhaustion and resignation. Keith's thrashing, Shelly's defiance, and the frequency buzzing away in his mind; Morrison was just following orders, and all he truly wanted to do was go home and sleep.

Something about those words seemed to light a fire in Shelly's eyes, a spark of pure rage and hatred at the Chief- at _her_ chief. Her expression of determination curled into a vicious snarl and she hissed,

"If anyone should be arresting anyone, Morrison, it's me arresting _you._ You swore to protect this city and her people, you swore to uphold justice and the law- _in that order._ And what are you doing instead, you fat fucking pig? You're- You're just dancing along to Corvus's fucking drums. You're not the man I knew. You're not Chief Morrison. You're a lapdog. You're Corvus's fucking attack dog. You know I'm right, don't you, **_Andrew?"_**

Something in that last word, that Shelly addressed him by his first name as opposed to his rank; something about her words seemed to cause a flash of emotion in Morrison's cold empty eyes. A brief flash of regret, of anger, of….clarity.

And the end of Morrison's gun quivered and slumped, ever so slightly. And Shelly, emboldened, just kept right on ranting, letting the chief have her tirade with both barrels and a vicious snarl.

"You swore to protect the people of this city. You swore to uphold justice. And sometimes? Sometimes the law is fucking _wrong._ Sometimes the laws aren't written to serve justice and maintain order, sometimes they're written by fucking tyrants. And you? You're just helping him. You're helping our very own homegrown tyrant, right here, right now, Morrison. You make me sick, just looking at you-"

"Excuse me, if I may get in a word edgeways-"

Corvus's voice piped up from somewhere behind Morrison, penned in to the interrogation room- Morrison and Keith were blocking the doorway, leaving the rest of their little gaggle trapped inside.

But Shelly had had enough. Corvus had done his job, as far as she was concerned. Opening everyone's eyes to the parasites that infested the country and were trying to kill their province, uniting the people of Alberta under one banner for one cause- he'd done his job, and then he'd gone way, WAY beyond it.

"Premier Corvus, with all due respect sir, I don't want to hear it-" she started to say, only for Corvus to come up behind Morrison and place a hand on his shoulder, leaning in and starting to whisper something into the Chief's ear-

" **I said stop talking to the chief, Corvus."**

And then Corvus did something very silly. He smirked at Shelly. He got up on his tiptoes to peer over Morrison's shoulder and smirked at her, giving her a perfect look at his smug, smug face.

Shelly's eyes narrowed.

Her eyes flicked over to her husband for a fraction of a second-he'd gotten tired and stopped struggling, and was no longer a flailing, living target.

"My goodness, Chief, it _would_ seem that this woman is unstable. Perhaps you should-"

"CORVUS, **THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING. I'M TELLING YOU TO** ** _SHUT THE FUCK UP."_**

The premier smirked at her, hand still on Morrison's shoulder.

"We've got your husband, my dear. I have no reason to stop what I'm doing. I'm going to keep talking to Chief Morrison for as long as I please, and there's _nothing_ you can do about it."

Shelly responded by flicking off her safety and pulling the trigger.

A gunshot is a hideously loud thing. In a confined space, in a hallway or a room where the echo has nowhere to go, the sound of the bullet can bounce off the walls for a good few seconds after the trigger is pulled. And that's to say nothing of the initial sound- the act of firing a bullet is the act of containing and directing a very small bomb as it vaporizes solid-state powder.

So an unexpected gunshot in a small hallway is the sort of thing that completely changes the situation, and what was once a Mexican standoff can turn very quickly into a shootout.

Keith instantly felt the arm wrapped around his neck loosen its grip in momentary shock, and he sprang free from Morrison's hold, jittery adrenaline-shot nerves unable to stop him before he careened into the wall next to his wife. Corvus himself was reeling from the assault on his ears, hands clapped over the sides of his head- and his face still intact, his body still whole.

Morrison grunted in shock and pain. He felt the slug from Shelly's gun slam into his chest, knocking him back, fouling his aim, stunning him momentarily- and it _hurt,_ it hurt like a fist had just slammed into his chest. It knocked the wind from his lungs and was definitely going to leave a really nasty bruise. He gasped for air and tumbled to the ground, battling with his spasming diaphragm as he tried to refill his lungs with air.

But the one thing that nobody could see was any blood.

Calgary moved so fast that Edmonton barely had time to blink, shoving past Corvus and leaping over Morrison to get into the hallway and cut off the couple's escape. He wasn't running on logic or sense- he was operating on his instinctive desire to protect his people from death and danger, and in this case, Corvus. The woman had pulled the trigger, and he didn't blame her one bit- but Corvus, Corvus was going to kill them unless he did something. Calgary had known from the start that they were there; he sensed them huddling in the antechamber, praying to god they wouldn't be discovered until after the meeting.

The city grabbed both of them by the backs of their shirts, yanking them away from the end of the hallway and the row of very large Reformation guns that was waiting at the far end to cut them to bloody pieces if they continued.

Both humans struggled, but Calgary had the strength of a million souls behind him, and reining them in before they ran to their deaths was far from the hardest thing he'd ever done.

" _Stop fighting me if you want to live!"_ he hissed at them, " _I'm trying to help you!"_

Shelly whipped her head around, about to yell at that stupid drugstore cowboy to let them go, only to suddenly find herself staring into his eyes. Those blue eyes that had finally cleared of the hate and madness; the look on his face was one of a fear, a genuine, caring fear for them. For her and Keith and their wellbeing. The man knew something they didn't about the end of the hallway, she realized dimly; not only that, but he _wanted_ to help them.

"Oh, how fucking cute. You think you're being some kind of hero, Calgary? Trying to protect a couple of parasites from extermination, hmmm? I'll see to it that you'll regret that, mark my words. In the meantime, shoot the woman. That's an order, Calgary."

Corvus folded his arms expectantly, a furious scowl etched deep into his face as he patiently waited for the city to comply. The revolver- Corvus's own revolver, it had to be said, the one Calgary was merely borrowing- the revolver was comfortably and visibly holstered over Calgary's right hip. He was fully capable of dealing with these two parasites, right then and there. And that was vitally important, because Corvus had a nasty feeling that both of them had heard the entirety of their little chat, and that simply couldn't be allowed. They needed to die, not least of all because that woman had been disturbingly effective at undoing some of the control he had on Morrison.

 **"** **No."**

Calgary turned to look at Corvus, spreading his arms defiantly- he stood in front of Keith and Shelly, ready to block any shots that might come their way. Morrison, he knew, was very much fine- the man was merely winded and trying to regain his breath, saved by the bulletproof vest Shelly had deliberately aimed for.

But Corvus was staring at him, staring straight into Calgary's blue eyes, a look of fury on the human's face. Because he wasn't looking at the Calgary he had torn down and molded anew, the one who wanted to fight for the province's freedom and save them all from Ottawa's endless onslaught. He was looking into the defiant eyes of the Calgary who had broken into his office and brazenly escaped by running from the legislature doors even as the guns took aim.

"This…you…No. No. I won't shoot her. I won't shoot her, and neither will you." Calgary said defiantly, the storm of chanting and rage and hate that stewed in his brain constantly abating for a brief, shining second of clarity. The monster in his mind had bowed to him for a moment, and he had no desire to waste it.

"You see this man here, Corvus? This guy? Yeah. Here's that pilot you wanted. He can fly that plane that Canada took to get here. You're Canada's pilot, right, buddy? Keith Price. You've been flying planes most of your life, right?"

There was a hint of hysteria in Calgary's voice as he glanced over his shoulder to look at the pilot. Keith, for his part, merely nodded and stammered something to the affirmative, and Calgary whipped his head back around to glare at Corvus.

"Right. So. You need a pilot. These humans want to live, and he's a pilot. Now I'm not a human, I'm not a father, and I'm not a pilot, but if I was forced to fly a plane with the man who _killed my wife and unborn baby_ aboard it, and nobody else but my co-pilot aboard, I dunno, Corvus. I'd probably fly that thing to ten thousand feet, then gun the engines and fly that fucker straight into the ground at Mach one."

The threat was not a small one, but the mere suggestion that Corvus's actions could potentially result in his death was enough to give the premier a brief pause. Calgary glanced back at Keith, and all he could do was pray. Pray Corvus didn't call his bluff. Or if he did, and if he did force the pilot to fly him and Saskatchewan north, well. Hopefully…Hopefully it gave the human some ideas, at the very least. Hopefully Keith realized that he had power in this situation. That he could do something about this. That he could save them all.

And the silence carried on for several unbearable seconds, save Morrison's gasps, which were becoming a lot softer and quieter as his spasming diaphragm calmed down and allowed him to breathe normally.

Corvus was considering his options. The woman. She was the pilot's wife, and she was pregnant on top of that. So obviously the pilot might just refuse to help him, and if he did, Corvus's plan to deal with Saskatchewan while dear Alberta was distracted with the festivities….

Well, it was shot to hell.

And he couldn't discipline Calgary for this insubordination, at least not yet, because the man was running the show tomorrow and there wasn't anyone capable of replacing him.

And then Corvus got an idea.

"Morrison?" he said, looking down at the chief of police, "I want you to put this woman under house arrest. Keep her under armed guard, do you understand me? Strip her of all weapons and remove her rank and badge. And whatever else you do to officers who shame the force. Keep her there and under no circumstances is she to escape or are you to kill or hurt her. Am I making myself clear?"

Morrison looked up at Corvus, and for a fraction of a second, the premier thought he saw a scowl on the chief's face. But it was soon gone, and as the head officer climbed to his feet, the bullet hole in his flawless white shirt plainly visible, the chief simply said,

"Not a worry, sir. We'll put her under armed guard, alright. No trouble to it."

Shelly's heart sank.

As she listened to Morrison and Corvus discuss her fate, she couldn't help but glance past them, looking at the tall man with the Oilers jersey and glasses- Edmonton, they called him.

And that man was staring straight at her with a strange, soft half-smile on his face.

Their eyes met, and he reached up and took his glasses off. Shelly was confused for a moment, and then-

Then he winked at her. Just like Calgary had. The wink, did anyone else see? No- well, Keith certainly hadn't, at least, so that was one heart attack off her plate- nobody had seen that. Nobody.

And as Shelly's heart cantered in her chest, the gun still clenched in her hand, Corvus finally turned to face them.

Calgary had dropped his arms, but he still stood defiantly in front of the couple, still determined to defend them at all costs.

"Mister Keith!" Corvus called, looking around past Calgary to look the man in the eyes, "I have a proposition for you. Your wife, child, and even your co-pilot will not be harmed. All I need you to do is fly myself, a pair of guards, and two prisoners from Calgary to Fort Macmurray. In return…I'll let you and your family keep your lives, and to sweeten the deal even more, I'll let you keep your freedom from this place, provided you and your kin don't break any further rules."

Keith didn't even hesitate. He just looked at his wife, smiled with relief, and walked around Calgary.

"I'll take it. Don't you dare hurt my wife or my son."

Corvus simply smiled, eyes darting over to Calgary and narrowing.

"There. Neither of them will be harmed in any way. Are you satisfied, mister Calgary? I should hope so. Because you will pay _dearly_ for your insubordination." Corvus said almost sweetly to the city, the smile on his face taking on a very disturbing undertone as he cast his mind back to something. Calgary just gulped, squirming in place and averting his eyes.

As Morrison got up at last, confiscating Shelly's gun, belt, and badge, Edmonton slipped out of the door and turned to Corvus.

"When do you want Saskatchewan and BC ready for transport?" he asked the premier discreetly, looking around to make sure nobody else was paying attention.

"The flight will leave tomorrow morning at five O'clock in the morning. Dear Alberta will still be sleeping, I hope, hence the earliness. So I should say sometime tonight. That gives me plenty of time to….get my guests comfortable."

Edmonton shuddered a bit at Corvus's words, knowing full well what that meant. What he didn't get was why the premier was heading up to Fort Macmurray and not the legislature.

"Premier Corvus, I must ask…why are you heading up to Fort Mac? The legislature-"

"Is known to _them,_ and more importantly, known to Alberta. And by the time I get up there, that room in the basement will be empty of anything incriminating. Our members up in Edmonton are already on that important task. As for Fort Macmurray, well. All things will be revealed in good time, Eddy. But for me, Fort Macmurray…is going home."

And with that, Corvus turned on his heel and walked towards Keith, the woman with the clipboard scurrying out of the interrogation room and following her master over to the pilot.

Edmonton watched Corvus leave. And then he watched, heart heavy and resolve steeled, as Cal sank back into the hateful hell Corvus had stranded both brothers in. He watched the kindness and decency melt out of his brother's gaze, watched the hateful smirk slip back on his face, watched as the slightly vacant look in his eyes came back to the fore; and Edmonton simply closed his eyes.

He needed to move quickly if he was going to save Calgary. But Corvus had just made a cascading chain of mistakes, and it was time for him to start exploiting them. Edmonton wasn't exactly confident in his plan, considering it was built on top of Saskatchewan's hare-brained scheme, but desperate times called for total crapshoots, and it sure as fuck beat letting Corvus win.

Edmonton turned away from the sordid gathering and immediately started marching down the corridor, already pulling the keys to his truck out of his pocket.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Hey, did you know I wrote a new story that's just as fucked up as West Wind in its own special way? It's just a little one-shot, no big deal. Oh, and nobody dies, and there's no blood, and also no Corvus. And there's cute Nunavut! Who doesn't like some smol inuit bab in their day?_

 _Nobody, that's who. It's called Cordyceps, and it's available now for you to read on my profile! Woo, how cool is that? And best of all, one-time special offer, it's FREE! And who doesn't like free stuff? Nobody, that's who!_

 _Okay, that's enough sales pitch. Regarding West Wind: Ha hah, we're nearing fifty fuckin' chapters and even worse, the one-year anniversary of this hot mess of a fanfiction is not far off. How did this happen. Why did this happen. How did this clusterfuck develop a plot._


	50. Chapter 50

**CHAPTER FIFTY**

* * *

"Okay, try it again from the top. You can do this Saskatchewan. Seventeen thousand people in front of you and three million more watching and listening on live TV. You can do this, Sasky. You can do this."

BC's encouragement wasn't particularly _helpful_ , but at the very least it was realistic.

Saskatchewan just gulped and shuddered, staring back down at the paper in front of him and opening his mouth. He wasn't even looking at the huge mass of words he himself had penned and edited very thoroughly; he already had the entire speech memorized by rote. Really, all he was doing was distracting himself from what BC had set up on his laptop; a recording of a large crowd all roaring at once.

And that, more than anything, was really fraying his nerves.

"I…uh…People of…People of Alberta-"

And wow, his voice was so shaky and unsure; Saskatchewan found himself wondering if this was actually going to work, if this could even work. BC had refused to read the speech, saying that she wasn't really big on talking in front of a crowd either, so that just left him.

Saskatchewan cleared his throat.

"People of Alberta, before we continue this any…uh…..FUCK!"

Saskatchewan threw the stack of papers to the floor, falling back on the bed and clutching his head in his hands. He was shaking; the farmer was going to be sick.

"I can't fucking do this, BC. I'm fucking- I can't. I can't fucking do this. We're fucked. Alberta- She's- That creep's gonna fucking win. We're fucked."

It had been not just hours, but days of trying, days of trying to get this right. Saskatchewan wasn't cut out for this job, and he knew it better than anyone. He was going to get up in front of that crowd that was seventeen thousand strong, and he was going to fucking choke.

BC turned off the video and sat down next to him, putting an arm around his shoulder in silent support.

"I mean, if…if you really think you can't, I could possibly…"

"No, no…that's….that's alright. I just….BC, I…I have to do this, I HAVE to do this, but I just-"

He pulled his hands back and looked at them. Creases and lines from a hundred years of hard work in the fields; callouses and bruises and scars, all earned like a cabinet of trophies. Saskatchewan was proud of his life and his work; but one thing he'd never ever been good at was public speaking.

"I don't know." He said flatly, looking up at his older sister, "I…BC, what the fuck are we going to do?"

BC swallowed deeply, reaching up to shuffle some of her raven-black hair behind her ear.

"I don't know, Sask. I just…Look, I'm not gonna be able to do it, because you read those reports and I didn't-"

Just then, the conversation was interrupted by the ringing of the hotel phone.

Corvus had been "gracious" enough to pay for them to be put up in a hotel for the last two weeks, something which naturally reeked of a trap, but one that had remained bafflingly unsprung. On top of that, the man had also been kind enough to reunite them with their suitcases and luggage that had up until that point been rotting away in the trunk of the rental car parked in Corvus's driveway. Saskatchewan had naturally been suspicious of all of those offers, but having his laptop on hand to write the speech had been critical. So while Corvus was virtually guaranteed to fuck them on this one, neither of them were going to complain about it.

The blonde was the first to the telephone, and to his surprise, it was the hotel concierge.

 _"_ _Hello, Mister Rutherford? Miss Douglas? Whom am I speaking to?"_

Saskatchewan sighed. How he HATED using his human name.

"Yeah, it's S- It's Gordon. Rutherford. It's me. Hi. What can I do for you?"

 _"_ _Ah, hello, Mister Rutherford. I'm so sorry to disturb you, but your presence is requested down here at the hotel office immediately. Both of you, I'm afraid; we've had a little mixup and we require your assistance to correct it."_

"Can it wait?"

 _"_ _No, I'm afraid it can't….I'm very sorry for the trouble, sir."_

Saskatchewan groaned.

"Right, fine. We'll be down in five minutes."

And with that, he hung up and turned back to BC.

"They want both of us down at the office to talk about…something."

BC rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, this totally isn't a trap."

* * *

Edmonton stared at the contents of the hotel vending machine, trying his damndest to resist the urge to play with Corvus's pistol hidden in the holster under his leather jacket. He kept his ears pricked up, listening carefully for Saskatchewan and BC to start talking to the concierge, who was a few dozen feet away, just down the hallway from where he was currently lurking indecisively by the vending machines by way of cover.

He'd disguised himself in a leather jacket and a Calgary Flames touque, hoping that it would be enough to throw them off if they should happen to ask; unfortunately, his scalp was really starting to itch, and Edmonton was pretty sure it wasn't just the cheap rayon fibers the hat was made of. He was also carrying a large, generic-looking duffel bag with no distinguishing markings; critical to his plan, even though it didn't look like it.

Corvus had assigned him the job of surveiling Saskatchewan and BC, which included getting to know the hotel manager and staff and installing surveillance cameras in their hotel room, hidden cleverly around the room; not one in the bathroom, though, because he had SOME morals left. The main thing that Edmonton had noticed was that Saskatchewan had spent most of the last two weeks alternating between reading articles, writing his speech, and tearing his hair out in frantic worry. He'd also, frustratingly, spent almost all his time holed up in his hotel room, practicing his speech and failing, again and again and again. It was clear from what Edmonton had seen on the surveillance screen that Saskatchewan was not going to be able to deliver that speech at the critical moment.

And on top of that, the contents of the speech itself…He wasn't sure of it, since the cameras had only ever captured the paper it was printed on or the screen itself, but he was fairly certain that if Corvus got ahold of that speech, or hell, was TOLD about that speech, then Saskatchewan and his people would burn for their "treachery."

But really, this wasn't about helping them. Edmonton didn't give a single fuck about the province to the east or the west. He'd orchestrated this bullshit ruse with the hotel concierge because his younger brother's mind and sanity were on the line, and he needed that speech.

Finally, the sound of Saskatchewan's surprisingly deep, gravelly voice made its way to his ears, BC clomping up behind him. Edmonton risked a quick glance over his shoulder.

Yup, they were both there and looking at the concierge. Perfect. He immediately pulled the spare keycard the hotel had issued him out of his pocket and made his way to the stairs, scrambling up the steps to the fourth floor. Yeah, the elevators were still working, but this was honestly much, much faster.

As soon as he was there, Edmonton turned on his heel and marched down the hallway, long strides bounding him towards the right room in a manner of seconds. He had given the concierge instructions to hold them up with whatever pointless bullshit she could cook up for at least fifteen minutes, but there really was no guarantee, and he couldn't let them see him.

The heavy door opened easily, and Edmonton breezed into the room, immediately looking around for his prize. The room itself was the same identical hotel room that existed all around the world; two large beds, some pillows, generic art, large windows at the far end to let in some sunshine. But what he really cared about was the laptop bag lying at the foot of Saskatchewan's bed. The capital city pounced on that, rifling through it and finding- to his relief- that not only was Saskatchewan smart enough to keep everything pertaining to the speech in one easily-hidden container, but the paper copies and the laptop's charger were there too.

Edmonton immediately unplugged the laptop charger and wrapped it up, heart hammering in his chest; he had no idea how much time was left, and at any second the two provinces could burst in, and well, game fucking over. Corvus was going to get them, one way or another, and if he found out- _and he would find out,_ they WOULD break, they WOULD tell him- well.

If this plan of his failed-

He didn't want to think about that.

Edmonton stuffed the laptop bag and charger into his duffel bag and immediately went through the rest of the room as quickly as he could, looking for anything from a post-it note to a USB key that BC might have left lying around. He needed all of it. Saskatchewan alone had information on how to undo Corvus's brainwashing, and Edmonton could only pray that he'd written it into the notes on his speech, or something like that.

There was a single USB stick lying forlornly on BC's side of their shared bedside table, and he snagged it without a second's hesitation, stuffing it into his pockets and making his way out of the hotel room. The door slammed behind him- and Edmonton froze.

At the other end of the hallway, near the stairs he'd used to climb up, the elevator doors dinged, and then his heart REALLY started to pound.

"-Yeah, no, that was some kind of a trap. There's probably, like, a canister of knockout gas or a bomb or something waiting for us in our room."

That was BC's voice, and even though Edmonton had his back turned to them in that direction, terror bit him in the balls and he immediately started sprinting down the hallway. At the far end there was a set of stairs to be used in case of emergency, giving thanks to god and all that was holy that this staircase wasn't alarmed. Edmonton took the stairs down as fast as possible, the sound of his shoes smacking into the concrete steps a machine-gun pattering. He was panting, eyes wide, and he sprinted all the way to the bottom and out the back doors, running around the hotel and into the parking lot.

And then the capital city realized he'd forgotten to pull out the bloody key fob. He spent a fair few seconds fishing frantically in his pocket for the blasted gizmo, heart pounding all the while. Finally he found it, pulling it out and hammering on the button to unlock his truck, then leaping into the driver's seat without a second's delay.

Edmonton backed the huge truck out of its stall without much in the way of care or finesse, but that wasn't really important; so what if he rear-ended that sedan and set off its alarm, he had shit to do and he had to get the FUCK out of there.

"Can't believe that fuckin' worked…" Edmonton muttered as he stomped on the gas and sped out of the parking lot, onto the main road.

* * *

Saskatchewan's heart sank when he entered the hotel room.

"Someone took my laptop."

The laptop was conspicuous by its absence, really; the case and the cord should have been at the foot of his bed, and they simply weren't there.

BC shoved her way past him, eyes going wide. "Fucking- Oh my god. Oh my god, Sask, we're fucking dead. We're fucking dead."

The room had been…well, _hastily ransacked_ was probably the best way to put it. The contents of their suitcases were spilled across the floor messily, the drawers had been ripped open and left that way, and all the sheets and pillows had been tossed aside in heaps. BC immediately made a beeline for her suitcase, or what was left of it, sifting through the pile- and pulling out a small tin that once contained tobacco.

"Okay, they were with Corvus. My necklace is still here-" she said, doing a double-take that the solid gold necklace and the ring hanging from it were still lying there on the floor, "-and that signet ring is solid gold. And- yeah, no, they didn't touch my weed."

Saskatchewan fell back on his bed, staring at the floor in horror.

"…So they've probably been watching us this whole time, then." He said flatly, reaching up to rub at his eyes. "Why now, though? Why take my laptop- Why take the speeches, why- why did he wait?" the farmer reached up and rubbed at his forehead, wanting to just curl in a ball and scream until the world and everyone stuck to it all vanished into the mist of time.

BC rose to her feet and turned around, biting her lip nervously.

"Sask, you know full well why your laptop's gone missing." She said quietly, looking at him with more than a hint of fear on her face.

"We're gonna end up just like Cal and Eddy, aren't we?" he said quietly, letting out a shaky breath, "Boy, I really fucked up this time…"

* * *

Edmonton had found a secluded Canadian Tire parking lot a few kilometers from the hotel, one that offered a row of empty spaces for parking along the side that was in the shade. What with it being the end of September, the shade was really not necessary; the air had a chilling bite to it despite the sunshine, a premonition of things to come. But it was secluded and out of the way, and it would do just fine for what he was trying to accomplish.

Edmonton let out a shaky breath and put the truck in park, unbuckling and reaching into the backseat to fish around in his duffel bag. Saskatchewan's laptop case was a heavy thing, and the city let out a small grunt as he fiddled, unplugging the power cord and pulling the computer out of the bag and onto his lap.

Edmonton pressed the power button, watching the familiar logo flash up, and found himself holding his breath. There was probably going to be a-

…Password screen. Of fucking _course_ there was a password screen.

Saskatchewan's administrator account was creatively named "Sask" which prompted an eyeroll from Edmonton, but the main thing that was going to fuck him over was that bloody password submit screen.

Of course, Edmonton had a secret weapon in this case, one that most computer thieves could only dream of.

He grabbed his cellphone from the console between the front seats, pulling it out and dialing a familiar number.

After a few heart-pounding rings-

"Hello?"

Edmonton let out a sigh of relief.

"Alberta? It's me. I need your help."

There was some shuffling on the other end of the line- Alberta probably had her feet up on Calgary's desk, or a table, or something; since they were both crashing at Cal's house for the time being, it only made sense.

"Yeah? What's up, Eddy?"

"I need- um. What would Saskatchewan use as a password?"

There was a pause, and it took a lot of self-control for Edmonton to not scream into the receiver. This was it. This was the end. Alberta was going to ask why he'd stolen-

"…That's…That's a new one. Mind if I ask why you need to know?"

"I- Yes. I'm sorry, Alberta. It's- Look, it's REALLY important to everyone's safety, I promise." He was lying, he knew he was lying, but oh god, oh god, please don't let her pick up on that, please please please-

"…Sure…." Oh god oh god that was her skeptical voice that was her-

"…He has a couple he uses, I know that much. He's never told me what they are, exactly, but it's not too hard to guess. He ALWAYS capitalizes the R in Roughriders, by the way…..Probably something like "Riderfan1905" Or something like that."

Edmonton let out a shaky breath, even though he was pretty sure Alberta could hear.

"Thanks- Thank you. Thank you, thank you thank you. I- Listen, Alberta, I need to go and I'm really sorry. But just- Thank you. Thank you so much."

And then, he hung up just as she was in the middle of saying something.

Edmonton's jittery fingers typed in the numbers wrong twice and he forgot to capitalize the R once, but to his shock, Alberta's guessed password actually fucking _worked_.

The laptop unlocked, and then came out of sleep mode- and as soon as it had gotten re-combobulated, (flashing up a brief image of Saskatchewan's grain-elevator desktop wallpaper) Word bloomed to life, opening up the latest copy of the speech.

Thank fucking god.

Edmonton immediately began to read over it, letting out a huge sigh of relief. There seemed to be comments in the margins of the speech, which, wow, Eddy had no idea you could even DO that in Word. But the speech itself…well. It was good- really, really good. Saskatchewan had no doubt read it aloud to himself numerous times, and it showed; the edits and pacing…wow.

But then…there was something he noticed. Written in bolded text and inserted on the line between two paragraphs, was-

 **(CUE BC TO TURN ON FREQUENCY)**

Which, Oh. Oh, no. Saskatchewan had written this speech with an accomplice in mind, which was great for him; he already had one. Edmonton did not. He didn't have anyone to go up in the sound booth and fuck with the buttons on cue; nothing like that at all. He couldn't tell Cal about it, because then, well, then bad things would happen…and he couldn't show the guys in the sound booth, either, because they- oh god, _the guys in the sound booth could turn off his microphone._

He needed someone to help him. He needed someone who hated Corvus, who wouldn't go and blab, and who was somehow capable of getting into that sound booth and taking control of it- one way or another.

And that meant he needed someone with tools, training, and…authority. Because if they didn't know how to work the sound booth, they'd need to be able to convince one of the technicians to work it for them. Which, when added all together, meant that his ideal accomplice was a police officer.

Edmonton grabbed a crumpled receipt and a pen out of the truck's console, smoothing out the creases and carefully writing the laptop's password down. That done, he saved the copy of the speech and put Saskatchewan's laptop to sleep, folding it up with the receipt inside and crawling back to slip it into the case.

Edmonton picked up his phone nervously, looking at the screen. There was only one officer he could think of who met all of those criteria, and…well, that officer was currently under house arrest. In a house whose address he didn't know. And there was one person who could tell him that address….

Edmonton took a deep breath and unlocked his phone, opening his Text Messaging window and tapping out a quick message.

 **Eddy: Hey CAl**

 **Eddy: *Cal**

 **Eddy: wha'ys that lady's address**

 **Eddy: *What's**

 **Eddy: The cop-lady, the one Morrison put under house arrest**

Cal's response was swift, and Edmonton bit his lip. Oh boy, this was gonna be a bit dicey…

 **Cal: Y u need to know**

 **Eddy: reasons**

 **Eddy: it's really important bro**

 **Cal: would it piss off corvus if i told u**

Eddy was, but also wasn't, expecting that response. Cal hated Corvus, it was true, but the main risk about letting his brother know was, well…if Corvus found out, if he strapped Cal to his rack and- Cal just couldn't know. He couldn't.

 **Eddy: yes**

 **Cal: gimme a min, they stuck her in a cop car and i gotta find her again**

Edmonton let out a deep breath. Cal was "scanning" for the right person; a city-specific skill that, while impressive as all hell, was also pretty time-consuming, prone to failure, ragequit, and headaches. Trying to find one specific human in an entire city was like trying to locate one specific cell in your own body. So it was hardly surprising that one minute rolled into two, and two into three; six full minutes ticked by, Edmonton counting the seconds, until finally his phone buzzed again.

 **Cal: u owe me a fuckin tylenol**

 **Cal: i got it**

 **Cal: 446 pine grove way**

 **Cal: mayday tree out the front btw**

 **Cal: i dont even know what a mayday tree is**

Edmonton punched the air silently, turning his attention back to his phone.

 **Eddy: thanks bro**

 **Cal: whatever ur doin better not fuck up my show**

 **Cal: dont fuck up the plan bro**

 **Cal: once were free we can shove corvus in front of a train**

 **Cal: its gonna be so fuckin awesome**

Edmonton closed his eyes. Of course Cal had to go and say that. But he was….right….wasn't he? There was a space in Eddy's mind that was clear, surrounded by a storm of noise and violently eager thoughts that sprang to the fore of his mind the minute he read his brother's messages.

So, really, his reply was only partially a scripted, robotic response.

 **Eddy: yeah man**

 **Eddy: cant fuckin wait**

 **Cal: but srsly dude**

 **Cal: dont fuck up my show**

 **Cal: or you'll really fucking regret it, Eddy.**

 **Eddy: dont worry cal**

 **Eddy: not gonna ruin your show**

Edmonton turned his phone off and did up his seatbelt, backing out of his parking stall and navigating his way out of the parking lot. Calgary was always a bit nutty about his "shows', and it was in all likelihood just a bunch of pointless posturing.

Edmonton paused before pulling onto the main road to punch in the address and set up his phone to give voice directions, turning onto the street and merging with the meagre traffic.

Time to rescue his accomplice.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Holy fuckballs that was a long chapter. Even Holier Copulation-Testicles, this story is a behemoth. Here we are at chapter fuckin' fifty. Did I ever see this coming? No, not really. I really, really didn't. I'm pretty sure I'm manning the helm of one of the biggest OC-centric fanfics…. Okay, probably not, but this fanfic is huge and I'm not sure if there's many others like it, besides the ones I've written and those don't count._

 _That's more than enough navel-gazing from me, though. I'm just stunned that people are actually still reading this thing, and many thanks to you if you are!_

 _I'm at a bit of a loss for what to say here, besides "Canadian Tire is a store" and "I'm getting everyone in place for the big finale, bear with me"_

 _But mostly the latter. That's about all I wanted to say._

 _If you liked it, leave a review! Everyone loves reviews. Especially me. I love them a lot. I also like follows and faves!_


	51. Chapter 51

**CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE**

* * *

Edmonton swore quietly to himself as his truck rumbled down the street. Keeping one eye on an unfamiliar residential road while also scanning every house for the tell-tale _446_ was hard enough, but to make matters worse he was doing it at speed and every house looked exactly the fucking same.

These new developments were really, really annoying.

Soon enough Edmonton found the house he was looking for, with a damaged-looking pickup truck parked in front and a Mayday tree in the yard, just like Cal had said. Edmonton wanted to punch the air- there were no cops at the residence despite the fact that one of its occupants was presently under house arrest. Which seemed a bit strange to him, but then, he'd never really bothered learning the particulars of home incarceration; he'd always just assumed they had a cop move in with you or something.

Edmonton drove a block up the street and turned off, parking his truck a fair distance away so that it wouldn't be too suspicious. He reached back and grabbed the duffel bag containing Saskatchewan's laptop, pulling it onto his lap and zipping it up. That done, Edmonton popped his door and hopped out onto the street, slamming the door and locking the truck a behind him. A chill was in the air as he walked, and Edmonton shivered a bit and adjusted his grip on the bag. The coming winter was in the air; despite the sunshine and reasonably warm temperatures, it was the sensation of chill that was on every stray gust of wind that really gave it away. Winter was coming.

He walked down the street, not really sure of his plan. Get in there and…? And Edmonton had no idea, really.

Soon enough, he was climbing the steps up the porch, pressing the button for the doorbell with a sense of trepidation in his heart. His hoodie had a zip, and he was carrying Corvus's handgun on a holster underneath; but god he didn't want to have to use it. In fact, the presence of the weapon made Eddy, in that small corner of his mind where he was still sane and rational, really not too happy with himself.

Still, as he listened to the footsteps approaching the door, Edmonton steeled himself to pull the weapon out, fully expecting a riot cop or something to that effect pointing a weapon and demanding to know who he was and what he was doing.

Instead, a man Edmonton didn't recognize opened the door.

Instantly, the city's eyes flicked downwards to something unusual- the man was dressed in a pilot's uniform, that much was true, but strapped around his ankle- well, it looked like a little black box strapped in place with a thick plastic band. An ankle monitor, he realized. Oh.

"Who're you?" the man asked, narrowing his eyes, "If you're selling anything, we're not interested-"

"I need to speak to Shelly Price."

The man at the door raised an eyebrow.

"Really. Who the hell are you, anyway? I don't know you, and I've already been through hell and back, and I really don't have time to deal with-"

"I'm Edmonton. I'm a-"

The man's eyes widened, and he cut him off.

"You're a personification, aren't you?" And then they narrowed again. He looked Edmonton straight in the eyes. "Wait here."

The door closed, and the capital was forced to wait on Shelly's front step, already a bit surprised that the man knew- that was Keith's co-pilot, then. But if only Shelly was under house arrest, why was he also wearing an ankle monitor? And more importantly…hadn't Morrison promised Corvus that all of them would be under armed guard? There were no cop cars anywhere around that he could see, and that raised a massive red flag in Edmonton's mind.

But he didn't have much longer to ponder those questions as the door soon re-opened- and the co-pilot was wielding a knife. Not a huge one, but a bush knife for carving wood or cutting rope. Edmonton just sighed and offered his palm to the man, wincing as the co-pilot dragged the blade gently along the top of his palm.

Both men leaned in to look at the tiny gash, which had started to bleed the tiniest bit. And before their eyes, it sealed up almost instantly, a drop of blood that had welled up from within becoming trapped on the outside of Edmonton's skin as the gash sealed up. He wiped the drop off on his pants, then looked the man dead in the eyes.

"Happy?"

The co-pilot nodded, turning back into the house.

"SHELLY! There's someone here to see you!"

The co-pilot gestured for Edmonton to follow him in, and the city closed the door behind himself; this was it, then.

The city took his shoes off on the mat almost reflexively, boots that he scooted into the corner with his toes. It was kind of ridiculous- here he was, armed and dangerous, and taking his goddamn shoes off on the way in to someone's residence, as though he'd been invited in for tea.

Edmonton took a deep breath as he stepped from the linoleum onto the carpet in his socks, looking around the living area he'd just entered. Some plain brown leather couches, some art, and of course, the three adults he'd been expecting to find. Keith, the pilot- he was sat on one of the couches with what had to be his son cuddled up against him. The sight of it- Edmonton smiled a bit despite himself, even if the little boy appeared to be clinging to his father out of fright.

On the boy's other side was Shelly, scowling at him. She'd been stripped of her fake uniform, and was now wearing a too-big T-shirt, something she'd clearly been forced into. The look on the woman's face- well, she recognized him, and that was a start, at least.

"You. What do YOU want?" she snapped, looking Edmonton dead in the eyes, "How the fuck did you find my house? I sure as hell didn't give you my address-"

"Uh…Look, let's just say I know…people." Edmonton said lamely, opting to not-answer the second question first. He took a deep breath, looking down at the floor for a moment to steel his nerves before looking back up and into Shelly's eyes.

"And I'm here because I need your help."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Hell to the yeah, we're like one chapter away from the big confrontation thing. I think. These things can be pretty fluid. Word of warning, we're gonna dive back down into hell a couple more times but I promise you, this thing is_ _ **going**_ _to have a happy-ish ending. Without any Deus Ex Machina, or so I hope._

 _Anyway, hopefully you liked that. Life is a bitch that likes to ruin my fun, and a lot of my writing time has vanished into the gaping maw of a job._

 _So yeah. Now you know, I guess?_

 _Anyway, if you liked it, leave a review! I read them all and treasure all of them very much. You guys give me motivation to keep writing this beast._


	52. Chapter 52

**Chapter Fifty-Two**

* * *

"Well, Tomorrow's the big day!"

Calgary announced to Alberta what was blatantly oblivious to anyone who hadn't been living in isolation for the past two weeks. This pronouncement was met with an eyeroll from the province, for the obvious reason that she already knew full well what was going on.

The sun was shining overhead as the two of them surveyed the work being done to the Grandstands below them for the upcoming show. The Stampede's grandstand was a huge and imposing concrete structure, inset with bleachers overlooking a massive dirt-floored rodeo area that intersected with a horse-racing track that was only really used for the chuckwagon races. The bleacher section had a concrete overhang high above it, rooted firmly into the top of the structure, as a measure against rain or snow or whatever else. And all around them, technicians and workers and performers and co-ordinators with clipboards scurried to and fro, preparing the grandstand the rodeo floor for a show unlike any the Stampede grounds had ever held before.

Calgary looked over his clipboard and nodded, ticking off another check box as a technician finished hooking up the last of the television cameras that would be pointed at the stage set just in front of the dirt rodeo area.

"I'm really friggin' glad Shaw agreed to cover this thing, you know?" he said, crossing something off and making a note that he was going to need a less shiny belt buckle than usual.

Alberta just nodded. Shaw was a telecommunications firm headquartered in Calgary, and without their help, Cal's plan to have the show broadcast across the whole province- but crucially, not outside it- would have been stymied. The owners generously agreed to offer any support they could, and this was further helped by local news stations offering their channels to the masses. This event was going to be broadcast across the province any way it could be; but critically, restricted as much as possible. Only Albertans would be able to view it, and without a valid IP address from within the province, people outside couldn't stream it either.

Or at least, that was the plan. Alberta didn't trust the internet to leave well enough alone for more than ten minutes; they'd honestly have an easier time trying to sieve the salt out of the ocean by hand than keep the internet from leaking the show.

Cal kept on chattering, completely oblivious to the fact that his younger sister wasn't paying any attention. There was a strange glassy look in her icy blue eyes, as though she wasn't quite seeing the same things as him.

"…Yeah, that's fine….I gotta go check something, Cal. Back in a second." She interrupted abruptly, cutting him off mid-sentence. The province's mind had begun to wander, her thoughts swirling as ever to the main well of discontent that simmered in her breast. There was a man in a cage not too far from where she stood, a man who she needed to talk to. She didn't know if he should be in there, if he deserved his imprisonment or his fate…but she needed to talk to him, regardless.

And Calgary, after he'd gotten himself composed again, merely nodded.

"Sure thing. You know where to find me. Can't wait for tomorrow!" He chirped as she walked away, her city's twisted excitement fuelling a tangle of emotions she couldn't explain.

Alberta turned and started to walk up the steps, back into the grandstand proper. The inside was normally air-conditioned, or at least it was during the summer; with the encroaching autumn, though, they were heating the building just a bit, enough to keep it livable. The massive concrete structure was more than a little depressing when it wasn't swarming with Stampede-goers and vendors selling their wares, and Alberta found herself sinking lower and lower into her mire.

She flashed her keycard at a lock to one of the downstairs areas, swinging the unassuming door open and descending into the bowels of the concrete building. The stairwell was Spartan and empty, her footsteps echoing off the walls and ceiling in and seeming to reverberate for seconds at a time. Their drumbeat was eventually silenced when Alberta's brown cowboy boots came to a halt in front of the door to the sub-basement, and in front of a big man with a big gun. He simply looked her up and down and nodded, flashing his own keycard at the lock to let her in; her key wouldn't work for this door.

The light flashed green, and Alberta pushed the door open into the sub-basement.

It would normally have been pitch-dark down there, save for a few fluorescents high above to illuminate the equipment that kept the building running so the maintenance crews could ensure it still worked; but the room Alberta walked into wasn't the sub-basement as it typically would have been. There was a ring of floodlights surrounding an open space in the centre of the room, and between the floodlights, guards with massive guns, many of whom smiled or nodded at her as she worked her way around the edge of the ring.

In the centre of the circle, illuminated by the floodlights, were cages. Four in total, spaced about the circle so none of them were close to the door. They were all very large, containing a few things; a bed, a small table and a chair; and of course, a person.

Four people, all in cages, and Alberta knew each and every one of them. Specially made cages, welded, not from simple steel bars, but from thick lengths of pipe, pipe created specifically to handle the intense pressures of refining petroleum, all welded onto a flat steel floor. She hadn't overseen the creation of the cages, but it was pretty impressive how quickly her people had adapted the materials they had lying around for the purposes of containing the terrifying strength of a personification.

Of course, America could have torn through those flimsy bars like they were wet paper, and for that matter, so could Canada; the only thing stopping him from ripping his cage to pieces and bludgeoning his jailors to death with the ends of his dozens of chains was the fact that if he did, all three men in the other cages would die on the spot.

But he wasn't of interest to Alberta. There was that distant, glassy look in her eyes as she skirted around the edges of the floodlights, finally seizing on her target and pushing her way into the middle of the circle.

And suddenly she was nervous.

This was no-man's-land she was walking into- if one of them made a move now, there'd be a lot of guns going off in a very short space of time, and she had her doubts that they'd be able to avoid hitting her. The point of this setup was containment of personifications, and, well, times like this, Alberta was really acutely aware of her own non-humanity.

But that….that didn't matter.

"Manny?"

The sound in the silence seemed to shatter a collective trance that had fallen over the whole proceedings, all heads in the room turning to face the blonde woman in the white cowboy hat.

Manitoba was the sole exception. He was sitting on his bed with his head in his hands, his back to Alberta. And at the sound of her voice, the vulnerability and fear in that single word…he said nothing. Didn't even grunt an acknowledgement, just sat there in solemn silence. And one second dragged into two which dragged into ten, and then-

"…Manny- Look, Manny- we need to talk… Please? Please….I need to talk to you." Alberta was talking quietly, softly, trying to coax her stubborn brother into maybe turning around-

 **"** **What."**

He didn't so much as _say_ the word; more growled it in a voice like a murderous bear. Manitoba let his hands drop but kept his head hung and his back to his sister, his shoulders raised and his posture defiant. She could see he was shaking with rage, a fury that she sincerely wanted to retreat from. This…this wasn't a good idea. He was mad. He was angry. He couldn't help her. He couldn't…

"Manny…I…Look, I'm…I'm sorry."

"…You're fucking **_SORRY?!"_**

And without warning, Manitoba got up off his bed and turned around in one lightning-swift motion, the look of pure rage on his face enough to make Alberta swallow nervously and take a step back.

"You're fucking sorry. Really. REALLY. You're a **TRAITOR**. You're **INSANE.** YOU'RE FUCKING WORSE THAN QUEBEC, YOU KNOW THAT?! YOU'RE FUCKING WORSE THAN **_QUEBEC_** AFTER HE JUMPED OFF THE FUCKING DEEP END. **_YOU_** **BETRAYED YOUR FAMILY** **,** **_ALBERT-HRRRRK!"_**

And Manitoba's rant stopped dead in its tracks with a choked gargling cry. She'd moved so fast- he'd barely had time to register the change on Alberta's face. She'd gone from "verge of tears' to _"ice cold hate'_ in the space of time it took for him to exhale, and now her hand, her frighteningly strong hand was wrapped around his windpipe and crushing the life out of him. And just like Saskatchewan, Alberta _was so much stronger than him-_

 _"_ _You can't_ _ **betray**_ _someone you're_ _ **enslaved**_ _to."_ She hissed, "That's the first thing. The second thing, Manny? Why the _fuck_ would I want to stay loyal to you- you fucking _parasites._ I came down here for HELP, Manitoba. I came down here because I COULD FUCKING **FREE YOU. I COULD GET YOU OUT OF THAT FUCKING CAGE!"**

Those icy blue eyes glazed over again, and Alberta shoved a second hand through the bars, grabbing the other side of his neck to steady her grip against his panicked thrashing. He was starting to turn red- and a sense of sick, twisted joy welled up inside her at the sight. And yet. And yet it wasn't- it wasn't right. She blinked- and for an instant- she saw-

Manitoba gasped in a breath when her fingers loosened their hold for an instant, not even wasting any time to try and reply or even speak. He had been pulled into the bars, slammed against them chest-first; but air, air was his highest priority at that moment. The look on his sister's face was so conflicted, so distraught-

And then her fingers were tightening around his neck again like a noose, and she was screaming at him, screaming in German, apropos of nothing; a thousand little details were presented to him all at once, even as her fingers robbed him of the air he found himself thrashing for. Alberta was babbling in German, babbling about….clockwork dolls? A nightmare? And she had- she had started _crying,_ even if it was just a little bit, even if it was just a single stray tear off the side of her face, followed by a few others as she demanded answers of him-

And then the fingers released again and he could breathe, could fill his lungs with _air, fucking air, oh god oh god-_

 _"_ _Please- Please, Manny, why?! Why- it- they're all happy, but they're NOT happy, they're- they're confused and I'm confused and it hurts Manny, it really hurts my head and my heart- I keep having nightmares and- and- Corvus did something to- to Cal, and- and Eddy, and he- he_ broke them. _He broke them. I don't- Manny, I don't know what to do-"_

Her hands never left his neck, but they just- loosened. They loosened, but he knew, he knew full well that if he tried to brush them away, tried to sweep them off his shoulders, the noose would only tighten again.

And Alberta looked him dead in the eyes as the first of her tears started to fall, her hands sliding away from his neck and onto his shoulders. Her nails, long and sharp, dug themselves into the flesh of Manitoba's shoulders as Alberta sought some sort of stability in the middle of her emotional hurricane.

She looked him in the eyes, and in that swirling sea of blue, he saw a little girl he'd known a hundred years before. Just a glimpse of her, that same confusion and fear that comes from the uncertainty of youth, of not knowing why the nightmare won't stop and why you can't wake up from it.

The ice that had frozen itself onto his heart shattered.

She was his little sister, and she was begging him for help.

 _"_ _I'll- I'll set you free. I promise. I promise, I promise. Nothing will happen to you. Nothing. We- we'll get you out. We'll get you home. Just- just tell me why, Manny. Tell me why it hurts so much. Why does my heart hurt so much, big brother? Why?" Everything is…everything should be perfect. We're…they're…my people are unhappy but happy but angry but sad but joyful and it hurts so much-"_

She was whispering all this to him in German because of the dozens of people in the room, but Manitoba got the message, and appreciated the need for discretion. Tears were streaming down Alberta's face, but she was being remarkably quiet about it- clenching her jaw and biting back any sobs that threatened to escape her.

Manitoba reached through the bars and placed his hands on her shoulders.

 _"_ _Alberta. Listen to me."_

His voice was soft and comforting. The voice he'd used to read the twins storybooks before bedtime when they were small. She recognized it, and he could see the spark of relief in her eyes. Stability. Nostalgia. Better days long since passed.

 _"_ _I don't know what's going on in your head or your heart. I can't hear your people and I can't hear the land's song. This isn't my land, these aren't my people. First and foremost, that's_ your _burden to bear, and I can't help you carry it. But I can tell you why your heart hurts, though you're really not going to like it."_

Painfully aware of how close her hands were to his neck, Manitoba took a deep breath.

 _"_ _Corvus…is evil. He is a monster. I watched him torture Calgary. I watched Cal scream and beg and plead for him to stop…I watched Corvus break that man's sanity right in front of me. He…He had something, it looked like a cattle prod hooked up to a generator, and he…he was using it on Cal, and I don't even want to know how long he'd been down there. And there was that…fucking frequency on the speakers. That fucking frequency, and Corvus…look, he_ _ **did**_ _break your brothers. He cracked their sanity and stole their free will, and they are going to be fucked up for a long, long time because of what that man did to them, do you understand me?"_

The tears in Alberta's eyes had dried, and now she was just staring at Manitoba with ice cold horror in her veins. Those blue eyes were wide with shock, and she was leaning her full weight on him, as if he'd just dropped the weight of the world on her shoulders.

 _"_ _There wasn't anything you could have done. Humans are evil, evil creatures, and we're….just their playthings, really. At the end of the day, that's all we are. We're slaves to them, shackled by the 'gift' of everlasting life…and there wasn't anything you could have done. But that might be part of why…and your people, they…they don't want this._ You _don't want this. I know you, Alberta. I know who you are and I know what you want. And you want money, not war. You want peace. You want me and Sasky and BC to stand by your side. You want Ontario and Ottawa and all of them to leave you alone and let you do as you please. And…Look, I don't get a lot of the shit you pull, Alberta. I don't get it. But I want you to do one thing for me. Just one. And if you do, I'll stand by you no matter what happens."_

It was a promise. A promise to his baby sister, a promise he would go to war again to defend. If Alberta still wanted rebellion, then fine. Better that she be schooled by an expert. But some part of him hoped and prayed that she wouldn't; that somehow, some way, good would prevail over evil. Somehow. Some way.

 _"_ _What…what's that?"_

She was shaking now, looking like she was going to start crying again. Really, forcing the quaver out of her voice was fairly impressive, because she did not look as composed as she sounded.

Manitoba closed his eyes and thought deeply.

 _"_ _I want you, tomorrow, to do one thing. Just one. You don't have to surrender. You don't have to do anything like that. Just remember this, Alberta:_ _ **you are not Corvus's slave.**_ _He may_ _ **think**_ _you are, but that is because he is an_ _ **elected official.**_ _You are the servant of your people first and foremost, and you are capable of moving mountains in their service. He cannot stop you and he cannot hold you. So…whatever happens tomorrow, your actions are up to you."_

Manitoba nodded, looking down at his shoes and then back up at her. His thoughts were a bit of a mess, and he needed to collect them- the pause didn't seem to have any effect, though, since Alberta was hanging off his every word.

 _"_ _I guess what I'm trying to say is…Corvus has scared you all into believing that he's the only one who can protect you from the vampires lurking in the darkness. And I think it's high time you turned on the light. You_ **are** _strong. You_ **are** _free. And you don't need Corvus to be that way. So all I want you to do for me, Alberta, is think. I want you to think and remember."_

Alberta nodded once, solemnly.

 _"_ _I will."_

They stayed like that for a little while, Alberta shuddered through the last of her tears. By the end of it, they were awkwardly hugging through the bars, her arms wrapped tightly around him- sort of crushing the breath out of him again, but this time, it was with love and gratitude as opposed to Corvus's hatred.

And when she looked up…there she was. Alberta. His Alberta. Hard work and drugstore cowboys, Rocky Mountain Sunsets and steak; blue eyes that shone like the sky with joy at handing out presents to family and friends at Christmastime. Fragments of Alberta; and he'd seen hundreds of them. The bitchy, miserable, shattered soul that Corvus had poisoned with his hatred…that wasn't the Alberta he knew. Alberta just wanted to _be._

The Alberta that Manitoba knew had always wanted one thing and one thing only. To be…free enough. That was all. She just wanted the East to leave her alone. That was all she'd ever wanted. She wanted her rights as a province and then she wanted the east to govern with a hands-off approach-towards all of them. Did she love them? Of course. There was no doubt in Manitoba's mind that she loved them all.

Maybe even Quebec.

Manitoba was surprised when she straightened up, pulling away but keeping a hand on his shoulder. The tears had long since dried, and her breathing had smoothed out.

"I'm gonna get you out of here, Manny." She whispered, smiling at him softly. There was gratitude in her eyes, shining the warm blue of the summer sky over the wheat fields. The twins really were the prairies embodied in humans, Manitoba mused, much moreso than himself. He was a child of the Metis Rebellion; they were children of the endless, rolling prairie. Their hair was gold like the wheat and the grass that rippled and swayed in the wind like waves on the ocean. Alberta's blue eyes, the colour of the sky; Saskatchewan's green, spring's life and renewal.

He nodded once, solemnly.

"I hope so."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _I have had writer's block on this fucking chapter for like. Three months. Holy shit. Holy friggin' shit. But it's done, it's finally done, and finally, finally we can get to Cal's show!_

 _Hopefully you enjoyed that little breather. One final push into hell, guys. Shit gon get fucked, but then we're gonna climb our way out of hell and everything'll be dandy again._


	53. Chapter 53

**Chapter Fifty-Three**

* * *

 ** _The next day…_**

Calgary was grinning so hard it almost hurt.

The grandstand was crammed with people, every seat filled and the standing room in front of the stage and the arena stuffed to capacity. Hundreds more were packed into the concession area, clustered in groups around every television, the excitement in the air almost tangible.

And Calgary loved it more than anything else in the world. The crowds. The excitement.

He lived for the Stampede. He _lived_ to put on a show.

Everything was going to be perfect, he just knew it.

The lights turned on, bathing the grounds in harsh white light. As it stood, the light was barely a complement to the setting sun; but as it grew darker, the floodlights would prove integral to the success of the grand performance.

The rodeo arena had been modified specially for tonight's main event, a change that Calgary himself had proposed. Normally the rodeo arena was a roughly rectangular patch of dirt, and it still was; but in the centre of it there was the platform of a cherry picker resting atop what looked like a steel stump. The stump was in fact a telescoping pole that would put the occupant of the platform a good ten feet in the air, safely out of the way of anyone who might be thundering around down below.

He checked his gold wristwatch- it was almost time for the show to start. And of course, Alberta and Edmonton were nowhere to be fucking found.

They were needed onstage for the start of the show, and Alberta was- oh, she was just over there, staring vacantly into space.

So where the fuck was Edmonton, then?

* * *

 _Earlier…_

"Ghost car up ahead. Might want to slow down." Shelly said, eyes flicking to look at the rising speedometer.

"Yeah. I might." Edmonton replied, eyes fixed on the road ahead of him. The truck's engine roared as he pushed the gas pedal down, blasting by the police officer and the speed trap camera at least fifty klicks over the posted limit.

The flashing blue and red lights in the rearview mirror brought a small smile to Edmonton's face, and he killed the engine, looking for someplace to pull over that would be reasonably well covered. There. The road they were on had a turn-off leading onto a gravel road that went up a hill- there was a huge park in the middle of Calgary, and this was one of the many parking lots servicing it. But this one had an advantage over the others- tree cover hiding them from prying eyes.

He put the truck in park and climbed out of the vehicle, musing on the fact that his rap sheet was about to get a lot longer. As the officer made his way over to speak with him, Edmonton noticed with delight that he was alone in his squad car.

This certainly had been a bit of an adventure in lawbreaking. He'd started his morning by knocking Keith and Walt unconscious with that bottle of ether that he still had in his hockey bag for some reason, so that was assault; then he'd helped Shelly cut off her ankle monitor and sped off before the police could converge on the scene.

So that was accessory to some sort of a felony. And he wasn't done yet, because as the officer came up to him with his clipboard in hand and a scowl on his face, Edmonton steeled himself to add an assault charge to his swelling record.

The officer opened his mouth to ask if he knew how fast he was going-

Edmonton moved so fast the man didn't have time to blink. He seized the front of the man's uniform and ripped him off-balance and straight into the city's waiting fist, pulverizing the man's nose and stunning him momentarily. Before the officer could draw his gun, Eddy pounced on him, slamming the human into the ground facefirst and pinning him there with his knee.

Edmonton distantly heard Shelly screaming at him in…rage? Yeah, that was anger, that wasn't terror. But he didn't give a single fuck. One human's nose was a worthy price to pay for saving Cal's mind from Corvus's claws.

Edmonton ripped the gun out of the officer's holster and shoved it in his hoodie pocket, deftly keeping the stunned human pinned facedown in the gravel with his knees. For some reason this guy was carrying two pairs of handcuffs, which was awfully nice of him, Edmonton thought. One for his wrists and a spare for his legs.

As soon as the human was immobilized, Edmonton took off his utility belt and set it aside. He found the prize he truly sought in the officer's pants pocket- his badge. Edmonton also stuffed that in his hoodie pocket, since it was rather critical to his plan.

He scooped up the struggling human with ease and threw him over his shoulder, about half of a fireman's carry that the officer's writhing did not make especially easy. Still, Edmonton had strength on his side, and was easily able to keep the man there as he bent down and grabbed the belt.

It was a bit of a juggle getting the door open, then the belt to Shelly, and finally the human offloaded and into the backseat. Edmonton threw him in rather unceremoniously, rummaging through his hockey bag and ignoring the man's pleading screams. He removed Saskatchewan's laptop and the few other things that were in there, stuffing them all under the back seat; then he reached out and grabbed the officer's leg, pulling him forwards with a jangling of handcuffs.

"Here's how this is gonna work," Edmonton said calmly, "I'm gonna put you in this bag. You're gonna stay in there for about four hours. Then I'm gonna let you out and you can arrest me. Do we have a deal?"

"LET ME GO, YOU FUCKING FREAK!"

"Wonderful." Edmonton quipped dryly, forcibly folding the human up, shoving him inside the large equipment back, and zipping it closed.

* * *

 _The present…_

Calgary stomped his way over to the performer's exit, the show tunnel in the side of the grandstand where the human actors were waiting for the show to start. He'd been breaking the rules a little to go and take a peek at the crowds, but hey, he was the MC and organizer; he needed to know that shit.

The hallway was fairly crowded, people in costumes bustling back and forth along with humans wearing headsets and carrying clipboards and walkie-talkies. Technicians in coveralls and the pyrotechnic guys bustling back and forth with terrifying armfuls of fireworks and other explosives. And Edmonton was nowhere to be found among them.

Calgary ducked into a little side room which was being guarded by two very large soldiers in full combat gear, nodding politely at them. Gunnar's men, of course. Regular police wouldn't cut it for securing their star performer, after all.

It was just a quick glance, but nevertheless Calgary smirked hugely at what he saw. Canada himself, dressed in a fine suit and tie and being attended to by a doctor on one arm and a technician on the other. His eyes were hooded and glassy; the end result of a cocktail of drugs running through his system to ensure he'd stay docile and compliant. Not like he needed to talk or do anything; for this performance, all he needed to do was stand where he was told and wait for his big moment.

The technician finished wiring up whatever was under Canada's overcoat and buttoned it up smartly, nodding at Calgary as he turned to leave.

Of course, Canada would come back from the dead. But crucially, he'd come back nowhere near here. The end Calgary had planned for him would ensure that his body would be too shattered to repair itself. And in such cases, personifications would simply be born anew in their capital's seat of power. A messy and embarrassing process to be sure, but far better than trying to regrow an entire body from a severed arm like a starfish.

And once he was out of Alberta, there would be no way for him to get back in under peaceful pretenses. That was the true penalty for failure. Once he was dead, Canada would be completely unable to save Alberta from descending completely into madness, and dragging the rest of the west down with them. Once the nation's head went rolling, nothing more would stand in their way.

And it was going to be totally awesome.

His freaky purple eyes seemed to focus on Calgary's face for a brief moment, as though he was having a snatch of lucidity; but the doctor swiftly injected him in the neck with yet another load of the sedatives, and it was swiftly gone.

"Can he stand?" Calgary asked, checking his watch again. Yeah, he still had time to track down Eddy.

"Yes, he should be able to stand up and almost certainly walk around a bit."

"Awesome." Calgary was rubbing his hands together gleefully, eyeing up the extra-special jacket the technicians had fitted Canada with. He was going to be the climax of the show, the final act to round off the spectacle.

"Calgary?!"

He turned around, ears pricked up at the sound of his brother's voice. Edmonton shoved his way into the room, panting- it looked like he'd been sprinting flat-out to get there.

As his brother leaned against the doorframe and wheezed, Calgary snatched his walkie-talkie off his waist and pressed the button.

"Yeah, Charlene? My idiot brother finally showed up. Who you got on makeup that's really fucking fast? Jean? Good, I'll send him down."

He clipped the little device back on his belt and shoved Edmonton into the hallway towards the makeup department. Calgary's mouth was running a mile a minute, jabbering shit in his brother's distracted ears.

"-No idea where the fuck you've been, I mean I TOLD you that you needed to be here like HALF AN HOUR ago, and I TOLD you, Eddy, fuck's sake, why can't you just fucking listen to me-"

Edmonton nodded blithely in agreement, his heart constricting in fear. There was a good reason he was late, and that reason was sneaking her way towards the sound booth as they spoke.

 _God, I hope she's successful…._

* * *

The hallway was gray cement all around her, the sound of her footsteps echoing onwards as Shelly stomped her way down it. She forced herself to walk with her head held high, sunglasses fixed firmly in place over her eyes. The only piece of her kit that the police hadn't taken from her was her plainclothes, and that was what Edmonton had insisted she wear. The stolen utility belt was the wrong size for her, and wasn't really designed to fit underneath plainclothes anyway; none of which was helping with Shelly's nerves.

She was a little bit lost in the massive structure, sweaty palms clutching a keycard that Edmonton had demanded off a guard, or so he claimed. Frankly, after his little display earlier, it wasn't unlikely that he'd just beaten a guard up for it and stuffed the man in a locked closet in his underwear. Honestly, she was planning on turning him in for assault herself. And while it was true that she did need a badge and a gun, there were laws against assaulting officers for a good reason. Those laws were there to protect her, she knew, and privately she felt a small kernel of fear for the city who had so casually beat the shit out of one of her fellow officers.

She kept wandering, not so lost in thought that she wasn't listening for footsteps or voices, neither of which were things that boded well. As much as she was uncomfortable with Edmonton and his actions, at this point she had no choice but to follow him along with his harebrained scheme. And as soon as he was done that little speech of his, she was going to march up to him and fucking arrest his ass on the spot.

That was a good plan.

Shelly's wandering eventually proved fruitful, and she found herself staring at a door with a little sign, indicating it to be the sound booth. And mercifully, there were no guards anywhere around; nothing that would indicate that there was any danger.

Shelly stopped by the door, considering her options. She needed to get the technicians in the sound booth to cooperate, and needed them to follow Edmonton's modified script to the letter. Furthermore, they couldn't radio Calgary, lest he pull the plug on his brother's speech altogether.

So that left her with a conundrum. What was she supposed to say…?

She glanced at her watch, and decided to just go for it.

Shelly flashed the probably-stolen keycard at the lock and pulled the door open, finding herself under the glare of at least ten technicians.

"The hell? What are you doing up here?! Who are you?"

"I've been instructed to come up here and supervise. There's been a modification to the script. Edmonton's orders." She said, forcing her voice to stay calm and authoritative. "There wasn't time to submit a revision through the proper channels."

"Aaaaand what authority do you have to barge in here like you own the place?"

Shelly pulled out her stolen badge and flashed it, feeling a pang of guilt in her heart. That should be her own badge. Her real badge.

The one Corvus had stolen from her.

"I'm undercover at the moment. Sorry about the subterfuge, but I've got my orders."

The technicians seemed slightly miffed but nonetheless accepted the explanation, one of them pulling out a spare chair for her to sit in and watch.

"Alright. What does he want done? I'd like to have a script…" one of them asked, hunching over his board and looking over the thousand-odd switches that only they knew how to operate.

"You've got a switch for, uh, Corvus's-?"

She let the question hang, praying to god the entire thing wasn't pre-scripted. Edmonton had handed her a USB stick with the frequency on it, just in case, but there was always a chance-

"You mean that one buzzing tone they ordered us to play? Yeah, we got a switch for it. Why?"

"That's the main change. I'm just here to supervise. All you'll be doing is turning it on at a slightly different time." She said, keeping her voice steady.

There was a hint of suspicion on the technician's face, but nonetheless he said nothing. Shelly sat down in the chair she'd provided, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to look bored.

If Edmonton's plan didn't work, she was going to find some way to personally shank him in the asscheek.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Again I awaken from my catatonic slumber with yet more questionably written West Wind Howls. We're flying by a lot of stuff at a breakneck pace here, and hopefully you're all still in the loop._

 _We're gonna get through this, people._

 _Oh, and one more thing: I actually do have the next chapter all ready and written up. And I'm gonna post it on Halloween, because of reasons which will become evident later._

 _As always, if you liked it, let me know. Reviews are my lifeblood- seriously, someone left a comment last night and as a result of that I felt motivated enough to write two entire chapters._

 _So yeah. Let me know your thoughts._


	54. Chapter 54

**Chapter Fifty-Four**

* * *

 **"** **LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!"** Calgary roared, his voice booming through the speakers and across the airwaves, **"WELCOME, WELCOME ONE AND ALL, TO A** ** _VERY_** **SPECIAL SHOW. TONIGHT, FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT, WE'LL BE MAKING AN EXAMPLE OF A COUPLE OF** ** _PARASITES!"_**

The crowd roared like some kind of hellish monster, assent and approval and bloodlust all rolled into one. It was like a crowd at a hockey game baying for blood during a fight. And just like being part of that crowd, the bloodlust was…intoxicating. Calgary swelled a full size at the sound of their excitement, the thundering of the crowd all he needed in that moment.

The stage was in front of the rodeo arena, and all eyes were on the blue-eyed man in his jeans and cowboy hat as he spread his arms and grinned at the camera like a shark. Behind Calgary stood Edmonton and Alberta, and neither of them seemed to be sharing quite his level of excitement.

Edmonton's stomach was tied in knots, partly because of the size of the crowd, and partly because if this stupid plan didn't fucking work...well for a start, they were doomed, and to finish, he was in for a world of agony.

Calgary had a microphone in his hand, and he beamed up at the audience, pressing a button on the microphone's stem and holding it up.

 **"** **BEFORE WE GET ANY FARTHER INTO THIS, I THINK SOME INTRODUCTIONS ARE IN ORDER! I'LL BE YOUR HOST FOR TONIGHT'S EVENT, AND FOR THOSE OF YOU FROM THIS BEAUTIFUL CITY I CALL HOME…well, you all know who I am, eh?"**

Calgary winked at the camera, the crowd roaring in approval- most of them were Cal's people, for sure; Edmonton could sense relatively few of his own in the gathered throng.

 **"** **BUT FOR THOSE OF YOU FROM OUT OF TOWN, I'M THE KING OF STAMPEDE CITY, HEART OF OUR NEW WEST! BUT YOU CAN CALL ME CAL!"**

The way Cal said "our new west"….it sent a shudder down Edmonton's spine. The corruption of his brother's old slogan…he wasn't sure how to respond to it. There was a temptation to just sink into the sickly joy his people felt at this spectacle- because they knew. They all knew what this was about, what was going on here.

 **"** **Now, for those of you tuning in from our...ugh...glorious capital city, I'm sure you'll be familiar with the man to my right. But for those of us from down south, GIVE IT UP FOR THE CITY OF CHAMPIONS, THIS HERE'S MY BROTHER EDDY!"**

And Edmonton grinned.

The crowd roared, but that wasn't what had him smiling. Because the number of people that WEREN'T watching this broadcast was astronomically small. He could feel his people's heartbeats, and could feel their emotions shift when Cal shouted his nickname to the heavens. And he felt in the depths of his soul an outpouring of love. Tainted, perhaps, by Corvus's propaganda; but love nonetheless.

The people of Edmonton were cheering for him.

Well, who was he to disappoint them?

He threw his arms up and grinned at the crowd, feeling a sudden sense of giddiness. The city waved at the untold millions watching through the cameras, smiling down the lenses at the souls that were woven into the fabric of his beating heart.

 **"** **AND FINALLY, LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST…well. Do I really need to say it? You all know who this lovely lady is."**

Edmonton took a step back in perfect sync with his brother, letting Alberta have her moment in the limelight.

And the crowd went ballistic.

His little sister smiled softly up at the crowds, face hard to read beyond contentment. She was smiling and waving at them, a look of delight on her face. The crowd thundered their approval, chanting the three syllables of her name in a thundering unison that seemed to shake the ground.

Her name had three syllables, and so too did Corvus's chants. As the crowd bayed its collective approval, feet and hands joined in the rhythm, _Al-ber-ta, Al-ber-ta, Al-ber-ta…._

A musical track began to play though the grandstand's speakers, a three-beat rock arrangement, in perfect sync with the crowd's chanting. And deep in Edmonton's bones he felt it, felt their chanting, and felt an urge to give in and join them.

The music swelled, overpowering; the bassline reverberated through the bones of the crowd, through the airwaves and through the internet. And there was something else mixed in with the song too, in time with the drumbeats; Corvus's frequency buzzed underneath it all, filling their minds with its swaddling embrace.

 ** _"_** ** _STRONG AND FREE. STRONG AND FREE. STRONG AND FREE."_**

Edmonton's eyes glazed over and the smile on his face relaxed.

 _Yes._

 ** _God_** _, yes._

 _"_ _Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free."_

He chanted along, letting himself spiral downwards into their mire. There was joy down there for a change; a twisted joy, but a joy nonetheless. After all, nothing was sweeter than savouring victory, right? Why shouldn't they celebrate?

But that hateful space in his mind, the one Saskatchewan had cleared out….it wasn't joining in. Edmonton scoffed at himself and his need for "clarity"- he had clarity, right here and right now. He looked over the crowd, chanting right along with them- feeling it right down to his bones.

He chanted along happily, the music swelling all the while; and as it climbed slowly to crescendo, the star performers were lead onto the stage, cuffs on their wrists- or in Ontario's case, huge titanium manacles, clamped around his arms and binding them tightly together. Each of them was flanked by one of Gunnar's soldiers with a gun, except for Canada. He wasn't with them, and instead he was lead across the dirt arena floor towards the platform, stumbling and staggering and unable to stand up straight.

Edmonton grinned at them lazily, feeling simultaneously relaxed and giddy. They were gonna die. They were all gonna **DIE** , and then, once they were all dead and in little pieces? _Then_ he was gonna save his brother. Everything was gonna be perfect.

The thought of his brother had Edmonton glancing over at the man himself, and that was the instant that the hateful space of clarity in his mind tore through his mental fog. He was here to save his brother. He was here to save them all. And what was going to happen here was sick and twisted and-

And, and, fuck it. Fuck it all to hell. **Fuck all that.** The last month of his life had been a waking nightmare, and generally…fuck it. He was going to have fun with this for _ten fucking minutes_. His people sang to him in his blood, in his soul, calling him with their siren song to join them in their revelling.

And what kind of a personification told their people to fuck off, eh? A bad one, that's what.

 **"** **WELL, NOW! WHO'S READY FOR SOME FUN, EH?!"**

The crowd roared, and Edmonton grinned. Oh, god yes. Yes, he was ready for some fucking fun. This was gonna be _awesome._

A woman dressed in the typical Young Canadians getup- Jeans and red and white tassled shirt, with a white hat to finish- trotted up to Calgary with something long and slim and wrapped in cloth in her hands. Calgary reached out and grasped the end of it, pulling it out of the length of fabric and holding it aloft for all to see.

It was a sword.

 **"** **Who here's heard of the Circus Maximus? Anybody?"**

The crowd roared in the affirmative, a thunderous bellow of delight from those who had read and knew what he was implying.

 **"** **Excellent. So for those of you who've read ahead, you'll know that the ancient Romans used to throw the people they didn't like very much to the lions. We thought about doing that, and I went and asked the zoo if I could borrow theirs, but they said that it would be too dangerous- for their lions, that is. It would be really stressful for them, and they might die. And to be honest, that'd be a real tragedy, no joke. So then I thought, what's something homegrown, dangerous, and well-loved?"**

Calgary spun around, pointing the sword straight across the rodeo arena to the gates that two men in cowboy hats were pulling apart.

 ** _"_** ** _RELEASE THE BULL!"_**

Edmonton cheered along with the crowd as it lolloped out of the chute and onto the arena floor. It was huge, a beast of a longhorn, with razor-sharp prongs that had been souped up with the addition of hardened steel caps. The bull was wearing a huge collar, like the kind that used to be attached to oxen for pulling carts; this one was adorned with spikes and bells, like a janglier version of a dogfighting collar.

At the same time as the jet-black Longhorn lunged its way onto the field, the platform started to move upwards, slowly. The steel column rose from the ground with a soft whine, raising its single occupant ten feet off the ground. Safely out of the reach of the bull, but in danger from something else entirely.

 **"** **Now, I'm a simple man, with simple needs,"** Cal began, gesturing at the platform, " **And one of those little things I need in my day is a nice, big EXPLOSION. Why don't you all have a gander at the slovenly waste of oxygen slumped up there in the cherry picker, eh?"**

The camera zoomed in on the cherry picker's single occupant- Canada himself. The men who'd lead him over there had undone his shirt, revealing the bomb vest snaking across his chest for all to see. Wires and cables and bundles of explosives sewn together and strapped to his chest. He was handcuffed in place on the platform, slumped, without his glasses- and blinking out of sync, one eye and then the other. If he was aware of what was happening around him, he sure didn't look it.

 **"** **I think we all know who that is, don't we? Just in case, though…let's give our ol' Dominion a big hand, eh? We were gonna play "The Maple Leaf Forever" for him during the last few minutes on the timer, but that was a bit** ** _too_** **on the nose."**

The crowd roared and laughed their delight, and this time it was full of nothing but hate. The word **_parasite_** thundered up from the gathered throng like the rumblings of a stormcloud, hissing and screeching from the bleachers, the standing room, the box seats…the entire province, it seemed.

Canada seemed to stir a little at that, lifting his head slightly, the slightest snatch of clarity flashing in his purple eyes. And right before the camera pulled away, Edmonton could have sworn he saw those fucked-up violet eyes shed a single tear.

Calgary spun around and beamed at Slate, and oh. Edmonton had barely even registered the human's presence, if he was being totally honest.

The prime minister's shackles were undone, and Calgary handed him the sword, the two soldiers to either side of him pressing their guns straight into the PM's back, lest he get any ideas. They'd let Slate wear his army fatigues, complete with a helmet; he looked like a proper serviceman, a sign of respect.

 **"** **So here's how we're gonna do this!"** Calgary roared, **"In the good old days of the Circus Maximus, they didn't throw those gladiators into the ring unarmed, goodness no! So, Prime Minister, we're going to play a little game, you and I. If you win, not only do you get to live, but I will PERSONALLY ensure that you and your men are all sent home safe and sound, promptly and efficiently!"**

Alberta's eyes flashed at that statement, and Edmonton caught the change. That right there had just pissed his little sister off. The look she was giving Calgary- and indeed, himself- had shifted from pride to….disgust?

Edmonton was confused, but he didn't have time to contemplate, because Calgary wasn't done.

 **"** **Now, Commander Gunnar was sadly unavailable to be here, but I'm sure he'll appreciate the swelling of our forces with the addition of Slate's men when he loses!"**

" ** _WHEN_** I LOSE?! "

The faintest echo of Slate's trademark hollering was caught on Calgary's microphone, broadcasting the dying spark of the PM's old fire across the province for all to hear. And Calgary turned around, grinning at Slate with the exact same expression as he'd had in the +15's, the lunatic grin of the murderous madman sneaking onto his face once more.

The look of fear in Slate's eyes brought a twisted joy into Edmonton's heart. He was scared of Cal- scared of all of them. Good. _Let him feel that fear_. Let him treble and quake before them.

 **"** **Yes sir, Prime Minister! WHEN you lose. Because our little game is very simple, sir. I'm going to throw you and all the rest of these flea-bitten lowlife RATS into that pen with that bull. And if you can kill the bull before the timer on our dear Dominon's vest runs out….you'll be free to go. But I think we all know that's not going to happen, eh?"**

Slate opened his mouth to protest, but Calgary wasn't having it. The city spun around and snapped his fingers, at which point the soldiers undid the cuffs of the three provinces behind him.

And before Manitoba could make good on any of this threats, before Ontario could tackle Alberta or Quebec could shove Slate aside to get his mitts on Edmonton, all three and Slate as well were shoved off the stage and into the ring with the bull.

 **"** **START THE TIMER!"**

On one of the walls overlooking the rodeo arena there was a large LED timer, intended to be used for the rodeo events during Stampede week. It bloomed to life, a series of red numbers totalling the number of minutes Canada had left to live.

But Calgary wasn't quite finished.

 **"** **IF YOU BOYS PUT ON A GOOD ENOUGH SHOW, I MIGHT CONSIDER LETTING YOU LIVE. EXCEPT YOU, FRENCHIE. SCREW YOU."**

Quebec swore loudly in French, getting to his feet in the nick of time. The bull thundered towards him, and he barely managed to dodge out of the way- one of its horns grazed his arm, tearing the shirt and skin. A line of bright red blood wept out of the gash, and the cameras splashed it all across the giant telescreens around the grandstand.

Edmonton grinned. Oh man, this was going to be awesome. He could afford to sit back and watch the show for a bit, right? All he needed to do was grab Cal's microphone out of his hand, and he could do that whenever.

His speech could wait, after all.

Couldn't it?

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _YEEEHAW I FINALLY GET TO POST THIS ONE_

 _And lest you think this is something I pulled out of my ass, naw sonny. I've been sitting on this idea for Cal's show for literally an entire year, so it's very gratifying to finally write it down._

 _Next chapter soonish._

 _Leave a review and let me know your thoughts!_


	55. Chapter 55

**Chapter Fifty-Five**

* * *

 _Many years ago…_

 _Christopher sighed, his breath visible in the cold January air, curling upwards into the cloudy sky._

 _He hated this place._

 _It had been eight years since his mother had died, and it still hurt like a fresh wound. Christopher was fourteen years old and all alone in the universe, literally and figuratively. As he stomped through the snowy forest, all he really wanted was….he didn't really know._

 _After she'd died, they'd shipped him from the shores of Cape Breton to Fort Macmurray to live with his uncle, a man Christopher had never actually met. His mother had never spoken about her brother, and Christopher didn't even know he existed until he was standing on his front step._

 _That was probably due to the fact that his mother and his uncle had never, ever liked each other, or so his uncle had said._

 _And that was probably part of the reason Christopher despised this place so much. His uncle wasn't neglectful of his physical needs, nor was he abusive; but the man was a sheet of ice emotionally, and didn't care at all how Christopher did at school or how he behaved._

 _The boy was on his own with his emotions, as he had been for years._

 _So here he was, stomping through the snowbound pinewoods on someone's property, hands stuffed in his pockets and a scowl on his face._

 _Christopher didn't know if he was walking onto private land, and frankly, he wouldn't have cared regardless. It didn't matter. He was pissed off, so he went for a walk. It was just...what he did._

 _He wandered deeper and deeper into the woods, muttering to himself. Oh, the boys at school, the ones who called him fat and mocked his accent? Parasites. Fucking parasites, the lot of them. He hated them all. They'd all pay for their mistakes when he was old enough to make them, no doubt about it. And his uncle…well, his uncle didn't care that he'd made the honour roll. His uncle just straight up didn't CARE._

 _Christopher was so lost in his own fuming that he almost walked straight into the corner of the cabin._

 _He looked up and swiftly did a double-take, eyes locked on the slumped building before him. Deep in the woods, surrounded by a freshly-fallen sheet of undisturbed snow, sat a little log cabin with a slumped wooden roof. The door was closed and looked like it had been jammed shut; but the windows had no glass in them, and it looked pretty well abandoned._

 _It was pretty cold out there, regardless, and Christopher shrugged his shoulders. It wouldn't hurt to get out of the wind for a bit, so…what the hell, right? Worst case scenario, he scared some homeless guy asleep in there._

 _The door was indeed jammed shut, and pretty tight too; but a few shoves with his shoulder was all it took to snap the rotten latch that must have fallen closed at some point in the past. The door flew open, and Christopher stumbled inside, barely managing to catch himself before he fell onto his face._

 _The cabin looked like it had been vacated in a hurry. There was a table and some chairs, which looked sound enough to sit on, after he wiped the dust off; there was even a pile of logs in the corner, next to the fireplace, as though whoever had once lived here had been planning on lighting the hearth before leaving._

 _He cautiously took another step into the cabin, looking around. This wasn't his place…but whoever had lived here before hadn't been home in quite some time._

 _Christopher considered this. He couldn't stand being around his fucking uncle, or even under that man's roof; and here was a little space that, with a bit of elbow grease, could probably be a space all his own. The door itself was solid, it just needed a new lock on it; and some glass for the empty windows, too. Easily manageable on pocket money._

 _He pulled one of the chairs aside with the intention of sitting on it, only to disturb something on the floor. There was a soft scuttling under his feet, and the raven-haired boy grabbed for it, swift as lightning._

 _He soon found himself clutching a small brown mouse, squirming in his mittens in fright. Christopher held it by its tail and watched it twitch in pain- clearly, it didn't like being held like that._

 _A strange thought popped into his head._

 _He could…he could kill this mouse._

 _He could kill it._

 _He could also…injure it. He could pull on that tail hard enough to rip it off. He could do that._

 _There was a knife in his pocket. He could cut this mouse's tail off._

 _A strange feeling overcame him. All the frustration and anger he'd felt had vanished, replaced by a feeling of power over this tiny creature. He walked over to the table and pressed it down against the dusty wood, experimenting with yanking at its limbs and tail; the mouse squeaked and screamed in pain, and Christopher watched with a cold fascination. This mouse…was at his mercy. And he could make it suffer, if he wanted to._

 _And he wanted to. Watching it twitch and writhe as he wrenched on its paws hard enough to dislocate the bone…it was….interesting._

 _His uncle had no pets, and he'd never really been alone with any animals smaller than himself. He'd never had a live mouse in his hands before, either; probably a good thing, Christopher mused. If someone saw what he was doing to this mouse, they'd think he was insane._

 _But was he really? It was a mouse, for fuck's sake. Who gave a damn what he did to a little mouse for fun? Cats did worse to the animals they caught, after all._

 _Those little black eyes stared up at him pleadingly, and Christopher didn't care. He reached into his pocket and fished out his pocketknife, deftly opening it up and turning the blade on the little rodent experimentally-_

 _Oh. Oh, that was interesting._

 _This…was fascinating._

 _He'd need to give this further consideration._

* * *

Saskatchewan's eyes fluttered open, and then fluttered closed again.

He felt _awful._

 _The fuck…happened?_

 _There was…we were…._

He'd been in his hotel room with BC, looking over the outfit that Calgary had provided them for the show. And then something had started hissing…

 _Out of the vents. Something was hissing out of the vents. Gas. They filled the room with gas._

It was colourless and odourless, apparently; they'd only had a few seconds warning before they were both sinking to the floor, unconscious.

 _So…where am I?_

He tried to move, only to feel his arms and legs push against something hard; his mind was still too foggy to really process what was going on around him.

The farmer could hear muffled voices, could faintly hear them murmuring about…something. Listening to them prattle on made him feel a lot less nauseous than moving around did, that was for certain.

 _"…_ _Very glad that pilot didn't decide to take Calgary up on his harebrained offer. He's going to get it for that, mark my words."_

Was that…That sounded a hell of a lot like Corvus's voice. If he wasn't feeling sick already, that man's voice would have turned his fucking stomach.

 _"_ _Very good, sir."_

 _"_ _Yes, yes…Oh, I hope you two don't mind carrying those boxes. We're nearly there, but it'll be another fifteen minutes of hiking once we're to the parking area…"_

 _"_ _Sir…this place isn't in a park or something, is it-?"_

 _"_ _No, no. Goodness, no. You'll see."_

The faint rumbling underneath him told Saskatchewan that he was in a vehicle, headed….someplace he didn't want to be. That much was certain.

The vehicle went quiet for a while, and it gave Saskatchewan time to focus on his breathing and keep his rising nausea at bay. As time passed, both the grogginess and the ill feeling in his guts faded, leaving him…well, not quite fully _awake,_ but certainly much more cognizant of his surroundings.

The vehicle came to a stop, and Saskatchewan once again made another attempt to move.

This time, he was sure of it. His legs hit against something hard and very close by. He was curled up in a ball, and whatever the hard thing was…

He opened his eyes, only to be greeted with yet more blackness. Oh. Oh…oh no. Oh no no no no-

Saskatchewan tried to move, to get up, to stretch out, only to hit his arms and legs against the hard walls of a metal prison. He was in a box. A metal box. He was trapped in a fucking metal box. They'd stuffed him in a fucking SAFE-

 _Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm STAY CALM STAY CALM-_

 _I'M GONNA FUCKING SUFFOCATE NO NO NO NO NO_

He was starting to hyperventilate. Enclosed spaces. TRAPPED IN SMALL DARK SPACES WHERE HE COULDN'T MOVE AND COULDN'T BREATHE AND COULDN'T-

Saskatchewan was about two seconds from screaming, punching his fist against the steel of the thing he was trapped in frantically, as if that would help.

And then the thing he was in moved.

He was being carried, being hefted and lugged around by some outside force, and that plus the feeling of entrapment-

Saskatchewan screamed.

"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT LET ME OUT PLEASE PLEASE OH GOD PLEASE I CAN'T BREATHE I CAN'T BREATHE I'M GONNA DIE PLEASE LET ME OUT PLEASE LET ME OUT **HELP ME-"**

Saskatchewan started banging his fists against the nearest wall, heedless of any bruising he might sustain in the process. He screamed and shouted as he thrashed around in there, desperate to be allowed out, out, OUT-

"…Interesting."

That was Corvus's voice, coming from somewhere outside his prison. And the man did not sound particularly kind. He sounded…. fascinated, and delighted, and neither of those things boded well for Saskatchewan.

Needless to say, this did not help calm the province's rising hysteria.

At all.

Saskatchewan kept struggling frantically, words lost in favour of screaming like a panicked animal. He needed out RIGHT FUCKING NOW-

The sound of metal screeching against metal was accompanied by a sliver of light entering Saskatchewan's prison. Instantly he quieted down at the sight of it, gasping for air in desperation- _light air light means air air means life-_

"Listen here, boy. You're going to stay in that bag for another fifteen minutes. I'll let you have a little bit of air on the sole condition that you stay quiet. I would let you walk, but I don't want you knowing where you are. Am I clear?"

Corvus's words were met with silence and panicked breathing.

"Good. I'm glad we could agree."

* * *

 _Meanwhile…_

 _…_ _What's he doing all the way up in Fort Mac?_

 _…_ _Wasn't Sasky going to give a speech? I thought…_

 _Corvus is up there and he's got Sasky and BC. And they vanished off my radar for an hour, which means…_

 _They were on a plane. He took a flight up there. What the fuck is he doing all the way up there?_

 _I…Corvus told me to stay out of shit like this, but-_

 _I have my orders. I…But I can't- I can't obey them, they're-_

 _He…He tortured my brothers. He_ tortured my brothers. _What's he- oh god- WHAT'S HE DOING TO SASKY-_

 _Orders. Orders. Must follow my orders. Must obey the people-_

 _But Manny- Manny said-_

 _GAH! Fuck! God,_ _ **what the fuck do I do!?**_

* * *

Rough hands placed the box on a hard surface none too gently, and Saskatchewan winced as his elbow struck the hard steel wall he was laying on. He'd spent the last…fifteen minutes? staring out the tiny hole made by the open slot, desperately trying to keep himself calm so that the light wouldn't be stolen from him again. Even if he'd had the presence of mind to keep listening to the conversation outside, Corvus didn't say anything else for the remainder of their journey, so he wasn't missing much.

Saskatchewan blinked at the harsh light hitting his eyes so suddenly, sitting up and looking around. And as he did so, his heart sank.

They were in some… dank underground basement, with a cold concrete floor and concrete walls. A set of steps against the far wall lead up to…god only knew where. All that mattered was that he'd been released from that horrible, horrible, horrible box, and he had no intention of getting trapped in there ever again.

A second glance around the room turned Saskatchewan's relief at his freedom into ice cold terror.

Against the far wall stood the rack.

Steel clamps for wrists and ankles. Propped up against the wall on its frame, bolted firmly in place. It gleamed malevolently under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the basement. Staring straight at him.

Saskatchewan shuddered, unable to tear his eyes away from it. There was a table nearby, a table with all sorts of horrible things strewn across it, and what looked like a gunsafe in the corner of the room, tall and upright.

And deep down, he knew. He knew full well why he was here, and what Corvus wanted with them both. And then the full magnitude of what he'd done really started to sink in.

He'd failed.

He'd failed to save his sister.

He'd failed to save the country.

He wasn't going to give his speech. Calgary was going to _execute_ Slate, Canada, Ontario, Manitoba, and Quebec. _Something which was his idea._

 ** _I murdered my brothers._**

 ** _I murdered my Prime Minister._**

 ** _I didn't save my sister._**

 ** _They didn't want to kill them. They weren't going to kill them._** **That was my idea** **.**

 ** _What have I done._**

 ** _Oh, god…_**

 ** _Oh, God, what have I done!?_**

He was trembling, not out of fear at what Corvus was going to do to him, but out of shame and guilt and terror at his own actions.

The click of the gun behind him refocused Saskatchewan's attention, and he remembered that he wasn't alone down there in that dank dirty basement.

"Now then, my boy. We're rather short on time here, so I'll dispense with the theatrics and make this nice and simple for you. Strip naked and get up on the rack, or I'll shoot dear BC through the head."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Jesus fuckbasketing Christ did I ever get writer's block on this one. But we're almost fucking there. I know I must have been saying that for the last twenty chapters but it's all plotted out and ready to fucking go. And on top of that, I'm off uni starting tomorrow, so that means I'll finally have time to type up the ending. On the other hand, I don't really like to write on airplanes, lest my fellow passengers start asking questions like "What the fuck is wrong with you, you sick bastard?"_

 _That and I'm going to be a sleep-deprived zombie as well, so, y'know. Fun times ahead for me._

 _Next chapter soonish._

 _Don't forget to leave a review if you liked it!_

 _Oh, and also: This summer. I'm going to post a bigger, badder, longer version of West Wind, almost certainly. Nice and freshly edited, with more Corvus flashbacks, trimming off the fat…Look forward to it. The West Wind Howls: Reloaded. Or whatever you wanna call it._

 _Get Hype, possibly?_


	56. Chapter 56

**Chapter Fifty-Six**

* * *

 ** _15:00..._** ** _14:59..._** ** _14:58..._**

The numbers were blazoned on the digital clock on the far wall, slowly ticking down the seconds and milliseconds until Canada's doom.

The bull thundered towards Slate, and the Prime Minister barely had time to fling himself out of the way, scrabbling across the hard dirt and trying his damndest to avoid dulling the sword or stabbing himself.

This was impossible! The bull weighed at least a thousand pounds more than he did, and he had no backup and only one fucking sword. He had fifteen minutes to kill this thing before everything REALLY went to hell in a handbasket, and absolutely no idea how the hell to get the job done.

Slate scrabbled to his feet, eyes riveted on the bull. He watched its motions carefully- the beast pawed at the ground, but seemed a bit unsure what to do.

There was a faint _bzzt,_ barely audible over the baying of the crowd, and Slate watched the bull recoil as though it was in pain-almost like it had been shocked.

Which meant…

Maybe that collar wasn't just for show, then?

What if they were keeping this bull enraged with a shock collar?

He didn't have any further time to ponder that thought. A thousand pounds of extremely unfriendly hamburger thundered towards him without warning and Slate once again had to dodge out of the way of the attack-

The bull whistled by him, the backdraft of it tousling his hair. He didn't even have time to turn around and watch it, because-

A howl of agony pierced the baying of the crowd, and Slate whipped around in horror. Quebec. The French-Canadian, splayed out on the ground in a pool of his own blood.

Slate didn't even have time to mourn his own failure, because the bull was coming back for another pass, its eyes locked squarely on Ontario and Manitoba behind him-

"HEY, HAMBURGER! FUCK YOU!"

He ran to the side, away from the province's dead body, waving his arms and shouting in an attempt to distract the bull away from the others. He'd failed one. He wasn't going to fail another.

The bull charged, and Slate, with his back to the fence, leaped forwards. The huge black monster smashed headfirst into the pipes at full steam, momentarily stunned.

Out of the corner of his eye, Slate spotted the sniper. Far in the distance, high above the crowd and crouched up on a roof, a black shape with an unmistakeable weapon.

Before he could scream out-

The bang split the air once again, the bullet flying straight and true. It slammed home into its target in a spray of still-warm blood, a small-caliber round expertly directed at its target.

Quebec's body didn't convulse so much as it absorbed the impact, the bullet piercing right through his heart and into the cold earth below.

They'd shot Quebec's dead- or worse, dying- body. And worst of all, Slate knew exactly why.

The minute the mangled corpse started to glow gold, his suspicions were confirmed, They'd nailed him right through the heart- and soon his body would turn to golden dust and vanish into the air.

So every personification that died to the bull would be finished with a heartshot to dispell them back to their capital cities. It wasn't a permanent end- nothing ever was for their kind- but their hearts were precious to them. Irreplaceable. The one part of their bodies they could not regenerate. If their hearts were damaged or destroyed, they were forced to grow an entirely new body from the dust of their old one.

 _For dust you are, and to dust you shall return._

* * *

Alberta watched from the stage with cold, distant eyes, lost in thought. She watched in faint horror as the bull rammed into Quebec and ploughed over him, goring and trampling his surely-dead body. Watched it charge away after Ontario, only to get distracted by Slate's screaming and turn to face him.

The gunshot startled her- but it was only when Quebec's body turned into golden dust that her expression changed.

Alberta went from confused detachment to flaming rage in the span of a few seconds.

"CAL! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!" she whipped her head to snarl at her brothers, both of them utterly entranced by the sordid show unfolding at their feet.

"We can't have them healing and getting up in the middle of the performance!" Cal protested weakly, his eyes still glazed and glassy.

"YOU- YOU- YOU **_APPROVED THAT?!"_**

"Corvus fucking forced it on me, okay!? I didn't have a choice! Anyway, it saves us having to clean blood off the arena floor, so-"

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME, CALGARY?! ARE YOU ACTUALLY TRYING TO TELL ME THAT YOU'RE FINE WITH HUMANS **_SHOOTING OUR HEARTS OUT!?"_**

 **"** **NO! I'M NOT, OKAY?! I DIDN'T HAVE A FUCKING CHOICE-"**

 ** _"_** ** _WE'RE NOT CORVUS'S SLAVES!"_**

The minute those words left Alberta's mouth, Edmonton's eyes widened a little.

The chanting in his mind was interrupted briefly, and for a second he was thrust into that space of clarity where his thoughts were truly his own once more. Quebec- they'd just _killed him_ , and defiled his heart. The gunman on the roof, there on Corvus's orders, had defiled Quebec's heart. And that was simply unforgivable.

He needed to end this. Now. This was a nightmare, a mockery of Calgary's festival.

The microphone. Now. There wasn't any more time to lose. He needed to grab the microphone-

The crowd suddenly roared in twisted delight, loud enough to drown out the family drama taking place onstage, and Alberta whipped her head to look at the arena- and her eyes widened in horror.

Blood. A pool of blood. Her older brother, Manitoba- lying there with a leg cracked and at an angle-

" ** _MANNY!"_**

Alberta didn't even think. She ran right off the edge of the stage and leaped into arena, hitting the ground and rolling across the dirt.

The crowd fell silent in shock as they all realized what had happened.

Alberta had jumped into the ring with the bull.

* * *

There was no plan.

Alberta had no plan.

Just run, run and cover her brother and pray to all that was holy that she didn't need to spar with the bull. Her long legs covered the ground between herself and her fallen sibling in a few quick leaps, and she stared up at the distant black shape- the sniper, clearly confused about what it was he was supposed to do. The end of his rifle was in the air-

But that was small comfort. Alberta was one woman fighting a tide three million strong. The voices in her mind were screaming at her in a rage she knew to be fake, a rage she knew wasn't truly their own- perhaps the inherent fakeness of it all was why she was even allowed to question, even allowed to turn back the tide.

It really wasn't a help. Fake or not, they were still screaming at her, howling in her mind to get back on the stage, to let the gunman do his dirty work- but she refused. Alberta refused, gritting her teeth and staring straight up at the sniper with defiance in her cold blue eyes.

Thus far and no farther.

"Allie…Bull.."

A weak voice croaked from the ground behind her, and two emotions hit her at once. Relief, because Manny was still breathing- and panic, because _oh shit,_ she'd just leaped into a pen with an enraged bull.

Alberta had a bullwhip on her person. Usually did when it had to do with the Stampede. More for show than anything else these days, but it _was_ a real whip- and more importantly, Alberta knew how to use it.

She pulled it off her belt, letting it unfurl as the bull started to charge, and swung it downwards, letting out an almighty crack that spooked the huge black beast into skittering off its mark. It looped back for another pass, looking at her with murder in its tiny black eyes.

"Bring it, fucker. I can do this all fucking day." Alberta muttered, rolling her shoulders.

The bull charged again, and this time there was the slightest hesitation in her arms. The chanting in her thoughts rose to a fevered pitch, and for a brief instant, she forgot where she was and what she was doing. It was only an instant- but it was almost long enough for the bull to run her over.

Alberta snapped out of her daze in a panic, swinging the bullwhip up and over her head and lashing the bull across the face. That was too close.

She couldn't keep this up for very long at all. This was impossible! Keep fending off the bull and get trampled, or move away and let them take her older brother? Fucking neither of those was appealing.

The bull pawed the ground and lowered its head, taking off in another frenzied charge.

And high on the wall, the clock continued counting down.

 ** _13:48…13:47…13:46…_**

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Not much to say today. I'm home from uni._

 _Leave a review if you liked it, I really appreciate it!_


	57. Chapter 57

**Chapter Fifty-Seven**

* * *

Edmonton dove for the microphone, none too subtly. The spell on his mind was finally broken, and he was officially out of time.

Calgary saw him lunging for the microphone and yanked it away, shock and fury written all over his face. The cowboy took a step back-

Edmonton lunged again, this time succeeding in wrapping one of his hands around the bulb of Cal's microphone and yanking it towards himself.

His brother's fist connected with the side of his face, a blow Edmonton felt rather than saw.

"Fucker! Get away from my mic-!"

Calgary's snarling whistled over his brother's head, the capital summoning all his strength in an attempt to rip the mic out of his brother's hands. Calgary dug his heels in, a stalemate.

"Let go!" Edmonton grunted, "PLEASE, for the love of god, please Cal-"

 **"YOU'RE TRYING TO FUCK UP MY SHOW, YOU BITCH!"**

"I'M TRYING TO SAVE US, YOU MISERABLE COWFUCKING LUNATIC-"

"KISS MY GODDAMN BALLS YOU BLEEDIN' RED LIBTARD BASTARD!"

" ** _CALGARY, I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR SHIT AND I'M REALLY SORRY ABOUT THIS-"_**

"Wait, what-"

Edmonton closed his eyes and kicked upwards, aiming square for his brother's crotch. His boot hit home, and he felt Calgary's grip loosen on the microphone. Edmonton tore it out of his brother's grasp, switching on the microphone without a second's delay and looking up at the sound booth far above.

 **"Switch it on."**

Edmonton's voice reverberated through the grandstands and across the arena, thundering through the air and across the airwaves just as his brother's had done. Unlike Cal, his voice was harried, panicked; he lacked the polished confidence that Calgary had exuded.

And that lack of confidence showed.

High above in the sound booth, Shelly watched in horror as Edmonton grappled with her city and her savior in an attempt to prise away the microphone, breathing a sigh of relief when he succeeded. And then he opened his mouth. When Edmonton spoke, the technician seated next to her turned to look, confusion and worry writ large on his face.

"Is this part of the show…?"

"I- I don't know." Shelly stammered truthfully, looking away, "I think so? That's your cue, though. Switch on Corvus's frequency."

The man gave her the side-eye for another crucial microsecond, then shrugged and reached up on his console, flipping a switch.

Instantly, the arena filled with the gentle buzz that the people of Alberta had become so unconsciously familiar with.

Back on the stage, Edmonton took a deep breath and surveyed the crowd. They'd started to murmur again, and it was getting louder-

"YOU **_FUCK!"_**

Calgary pounced him suddenly and without warning, the two cities suddenly grappling over the microphone in desperation. They grappled back and forth, the southern city swiftly gaining the upper hand over his brother in a matter of startled seconds.

Edmonton panicked.

 ** _"STOP!"_**

The command hit Calgary like a ton of bricks, and he wasn't alone. The audience fell silent all at once, the command stunning the masses just as surely as it had Calgary.

Edmonton easily shoved his brother off and turned to face the crowd, eyes wide and frantic as he surveyed the scene. There wasn't much time.

"People of Alberta!" he thundered into the microphone, "I ask one thing of you. Only one thing: Listen to me. Listen to the end of my speech. Listen to my words and THINK about my words, Alberta. That is all I ask of you- of all of you. Do you understand me? Let me finish my speech. And then…I don't care what you do. Just **let me speak."**

He looked up at the crowd, passing his eyes over the silent 17,000 as they regarded his words, his face filling the jumbotron screen impossibly wide.

Edmonton reached up and took off his glasses, folding them up and placing them in his breast pocket without even looking. The crowd warped into a blurry blob in the distance, letting him focus on his words and his thoughts.

"Kill the sound."

The statement was a flat command to the audio booth, and it was met with an almost imperceptible change- the frequency that had been buzzing deafeningly loud across the airwaves went dead, leaving Edmonton naked and exposed on the stage. Unprotected. They could have shot him off the stage in an instant.

He drew in a deep breath.

"People of Alberta. Listen to my words. Listen to me. You've been lied to. WE have been lied to. The Reformation Party and Premier Corvus- No."

Edmonton stopped. That was the speech he'd read and memorized, but that wasn't going to work. It was time to go a little off-script.

"Premier Corvus is…he's controlling us. Controlling YOU. Controlling you, your friends, your family, your teacher, your boss, your pastor, your coworker- he's controlling all of us. All of us are marching to the beat of his drum. And is that really our fault? Somewhat. Maybe. Time will tell the full story. But all that matters is the here and the now. And all that matters is that we've all been deceived."

Edmonton couldn't see the faces in the crowd. Couldn't see the mass of furrowed brows, the looks of confusion and anger on many of the faces. He couldn't see the effect of his words, and he kept going.

"He lied to us, all of us. Lied to us, tricked us, and brainwashed us all. And maybe he was right to do so. Maybe the east are parasites. Maybe we're better off without them. Maybe that's true, and maybe it isn't. I don't know. I don't care, because it doesn't matter. Whatever his intentions, whatever his ideals, the Reformation Party is evil and their methods are deplorable. Free will is a precious thing, and any means that strip your ability to think for yourself can never ever be justified by whatever ends they serve.

He took control of us. Poisoned us with hate. With the thoughts in his own twisted mind. Look at yourselves, Alberta. **You're baying for blood.** And you got what you wanted, didn't you?

A man died here today. His name…I don't know his name. But you saw. You watched him die. You watched the bull run him down and trample his body, watched him bleed his last on a cold patch of frozen dirt thousands of miles from his home. _And you cheered._ You _cheered_ as that man _died,_ Alberta. What if that was YOU? Your brother, your sister, your father, your mother, your spouse, your girlfriend, your grandfather, _your child?!_

And you're cheering for the rest of them to die, too. Do they have families, Alberta? Do you know? Do you _care?_ Do you care who might weep for them, for the lives that will be shattered just to satisfy Corvus's twisted hate?!"

Edmonton had started to shout by the end, his face getting redder and redder. And in the background, the timer on the wall continued to tick down the minutes Canada had to live.

"Is that who you are? Are we no better than the Romans, flinging slaves to their deaths for our own horrifying amusement? Think. Please. Think about who you are and what you are. Think about what it is **you** truly want. Do you want this? Do you want to rip this country in two? Do you? Do the ends justify the means, Alberta?"

He looked up towards the sound booth and nodded, hoping Shelly would get the message. And then Edmonton snapped his fingers, and instantly the frequency was back in the minds of the masses. It swaddled their thoughts, making it impossible to do anything but listen to Edmonton's voice and absorb the orders he gave them.

"There's only one thing I want you to do when I'm finished this speech. Only one thing. When I drop this mic, I want you all to **think for yourselves**. That's it. Think about what it is you're doing. Think about what it is **YOU** want. **YOU**. You, the individual, the person listening to me. Not Corvus, not the Reformation Party, YOU."

Edmonton ran his myopic eyes over the blurry crowd, taking in the sight of the cloudy sky high overhead. There was a gap in the stormy fall skies; and through the tumbling grey fog a slice of the pure blue sky shone through.

"One final order. One final command. **THINK FOR YOURSELF."**

Edmonton pulled the microphone away from himself, holding it at arm's length from his body, and dropped it.

The frequency went dead.

And the only sound that could be heard was the wind.

A gentle breeze blowing from the west.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _I have been getting an insane number of anonymous guest reviews lately, and holy shit, I don't know where you all came from, but I love you all so much. Also, hi to Jasmine, I'm glad you liked the last chapter!_

 _Hopefully you enjoyed that. But we're nowhere near done yet. Oh goodness me, no. We're almost at the true denouement. Get hype._

 _As always, if you liked it, feel free to leave a review! I read and appreciate all of them, trust me._


	58. Chapter 58

**Chapter Fifty-Eight**

* * *

Silence.

Everything was silent and still.

In his heart, Edmonton could hear the stillness of his own people. Then, confusion. Momentary befuddlement as his million people gaped in confusion at their TV screens and laptops, thoughts crawling along. He closed his eyes, fully expecting nothing to happen. Fully expecting the crowd at his feet to snap straight back into their bloodthirsty rage, to pour over the fence and grab him and do…whatever it was they were going to do.

He looked over at Calgary. His brother was looking up at him, his face blank. He was just...breathing. Just breathing, and…thinking? Edmonton hoped so.

The stillness was like a spell had been cast on the crowd, stretching on for a second, then two, then three. Edmonton put his glasses back on and looked out over them- and his heart leapt. A sea of furrowed brows, of faces changing from blank to confused- and then to concerned.

It was a child who finally broke the silence.

A small boy, held aloft on the shoulders of his befuddled father. The pair of them were in the standing section, and the boy was looking up at Edmonton with that look of confused, ignorant terror that is so typical of youth.

He looked up at Edmonton, and then the jumbotron, and then the clock on the wall.

And the little boy screamed out, "NO!"

And just like that, the spell broke.

Edmonton came damn close to falling to his knees. It was a tidal wave of voices that suddenly swamped his mind, all screaming a single strain of thought in unison. _No. NO. WHAT HAVE WE DONE?! STOP THIS! STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!_ _ **THIS IS NOT WHAT WE ARE!**_

A scream of desperation, a command to him, their personification, their servant. He was theirs. At the end of the day, his mind and soul were made out of them. And the scream was repeated in a hundred different languages, by voices from the smallest child to the century-old elder, the banker, the garbageman, the mother, the student. The roughneck and the hockey player. All joined in unison in their howl, their sole demand for him to put a stop to this travesty.

 _I've done my best,_ he replied to his people, _I've done the best I can-_

 _FINISH IT THEN! SAVE THEM- SAVE HIM! SAVE HIM! SAVE HIM, SAVE HIM, SAVE HIM-_

Edmonton knew just what they meant by "him." He was municipal. Alberta was provincial. The topmost tier…well, that was federal, wasn't it?

Edmonton felt a bit like a puppet on a string as he leaped off the stage, just as his sister had done, his movements not quite his own.

He felt an almost Zenlike calm, in spite of himself; Edmonton hit the dirt and rolled out of the landing, because sticking it was a great way to break your friggin' ankles. He was up on his feet and running towards Canada's perch within a few seconds, heart hammering in his chest. His people's voices were roaring in his mind, making it hard to think.

Edmonton wasn't the only one being swamped.

Calgary was in a similar state, albeit a far more muddled one. He didn't know what was going on, only that his people were demanding that he act. The crowd howled in delight as he leaped off the stage, their million muddled voices demanding he stop this, at once. Immediately.

Well, who was he to say no to that kind of an audience reaction?

"HEY! HEEEEEY! THE BULL! LURE THE BULL OVER HERE! I HAVE AN IDEA!"

The voice that pierced the air was none other than Slate, screaming at the top of his lungs and waving both his arms and the sword around. Ontario was next to him, the both of them having taken cover behind the pillar when Alberta leaped into the ring.

Calgary looked at his brother with a nod, shoving his hand between the buttons of his dress shirt and pulling out Corvus's revolver. He'd need it- hopefully it was a high enough caliber to take down the bull.

Alberta was the only one who hadn't moved from her position, but that was understandable- she was still guarding Manitoba, though the sniper on the roof seemed to have disappeared.

The bull was currently milling about, not entirely sure what it was supposed to do next. Alberta had finally succeeded in hammering home the idea that she was not to be trifled with, and so the angry animal was left looking around and snorting, pawing at the ground and looking for trouble.

High on the wall, Canada's clock continued to tick down.

Slate looked around at the gathered personifications and gestured with his sword at Calgary.

"Can- The vest. Can we turn it off?! You've got a remote or something-" Slate spluttered desperately, knowing full well that getting Canada down from there was the only option for preventing a civil war or worse.

Calgary swallowed nervously. "I- No. It's a- the signal's been sent. It's on a timer. There's no abort switch because- Well, because I'm not a shitty Bond villain, is why. And I can't get him down from there, either- That's also on a timer."

Slate nodded grimly, looking at the bull once again.

"We need to get that thing to ram into that pillar there. Then- Look, I don't know, but it'll probably topple on its own, right? We gotta get him down from up there, get that vest off him, or else- god, I don't even know. Fucking civil war, probably; that's what protocol would dictate, and I don't fancy your chances of winning that fight."

"So hang on, we gotta convince the bull to ram the pillar?" Eddy said quizzically, looking at the animal and then the steel column holding Canada aloft, "How the fucking fuck are we gonna do that?"

Calgary held up his revolver and smirked, giving the six chambers a little flick and letting it spin.

"Leave that to me, boys. I ain't called Cowtown for nothin'."

The Prime Minister nodded, gesturing with his sword to the edges of the Arena.

"Everyone get out of the way. Ontario? Go get Alberta and- I don't know. We'll need to do something about that bomb vest-"

"The explosives are designed to blow inwards," Calgary interrupted, a look of grim determination on his face, "Not really outwards. They're not that powerful, either- designed for minimal shrapnel and a small shockwave because of the crowd. Safety first and all that shit. All's we need to do is fling it away from us and I can blow it up with a bullet, or just let it blow on its own. It's got a blast radius of about ten feet, so as long as we're more than that, we ought to be fine."

Everyone nodded in unison.

"ALRIGHT, YOU HEARD HIM!" Slate roared, stunning everyone, "LET'S GET THE FUCK OUT OF HIS WAY, YEAH?!"

The reappearance of the Prime Minister's old fire was something else to behold. He fit his fatigues well, every inch the old drill sergeant that he'd been in his former life. The sword only completed the look, really.

Everyone scampered to the sides, away from the bull, as Cal backed himself against the pillar, pressing his back to the cold steel and aiming the revolver with care. The sight wasn't worth dick, but fortunately he'd had some experience with pistols in the past.

This was all going to come down to timing, in the end. He'd have a mere fraction of a second to get the fuck out of the way….

Calgary pulled the trigger, his arm moving back involuntarily from the recoil, and he watched as a burst of bright red blood welled up out of the bull's left shoulder and splattered on the frozen dirt below. The animal bellowed in agony, whipping its head around to look him dead in the eyes, and it charged without a second's hesitation.

Calgary watched it thunder towards him, a thousand pounds of murder and muscle with steel spikes he himself had ordered grafted onto its horns. This was his monster, his creation…and he was going to put it down, one way or another.

The thundering of hooves lasted only a few seconds, the bull's course well and truly set before the city leaped out of the way, off to the left. His motions were only partly his own, and the length of his leap- that was something inhuman. Or rather, it was entirely _too_ human.

The bull was unable to stop itself in time, slamming headlong into the hollow pillar and caving in the hardened steel significantly. The platform above shook, pitching its occupant forwards and into an odd position; Canada was tossed about like a ragdoll, really.

But the pillar didn't topple, and the personification didn't fall; the craftsmen had done their jobs well, and Calgary scowled at the sight of it. The voices in his head were screaming at him to end this nightmare, the crowd beyond the arena's fence verbalizing the only thoughts in his brain. In all truthfulness, the City of Calgary was nothing more than that; his thoughts were somewhere adrift in a sea of voices, and he was acting on their orders alone.

Which meant that Slate was the one in charge of this show, and seeing the pillar had not yet toppled, he swept his eyes over the arena- and got an idea.

"ONTARIO! GRAB THAT THING, SEE IF YOU CAN PULL IT DOWN- USE ALL OF YOUR STRENGTH! CALGARY, EDMONTON, YOU HELP HIM! ALBERTA-"

Slate's voice cut out suddenly, looking across the arena at the tall blonde woman who was currently staring straight at him. And his voice died in his throat. Barking orders down at her was half the reason they were in this mess in the first place, wasn't it? And it wasn't ALL his fault, but the thought still gave the Prime Minister pause.

"Alberta, you…I…Nevermind." He mumbled, lamely, looking at the bull as it staggered around. "GET TO IT, BOYS! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!"

And then Slate ran for the bull. He couldn't help them bend the steel to shake Canada loose; that was a job for hands with superhuman strength behind them. No, what he was after was the bull. Wounded and weakened and a monster to behold, the Texas Longhorn had suffered enough, and he was going to put a stop to it right then and there.

Ontario reached the pillar first, obeying his Prime Minister's command without so much as a second thought. The dent in the metal was deep, deep and at about waist height; just perfect for him. He dug his heels into the icy September dirt and started to push, shoving the post out of true and towards the ground. Ontario closed his eyes and listened to the thrumming of his heartbeat, the song of his people pulling him in and letting him channel his incredible strength. He was the strongest of them all, without any close second; twelve million souls powering his engine, industry's eternal flamebearer to the bitter end.

But this job was a bit of an ask, even for him. He had no leverage, and was sliding backwards into the dirt, unable to really find purchase on the soft ground. On the other side, Calgary and Edmonton had found a rope and tossed it through the supports above, both of them pulling with all their might on one of the two ends. Fourteen million were pulling on the platform- and yet the steel still held.

Ontario had his orders. The Prime Minister's orders. He was…He was the seat of power. He'd been told to knock the pillar down, and so he would. And as he threw all his strength into it, the column gave- a little.

The steel creaked, the metal bent- a little bit, a tiny amount.

Spurs clanked against the hard dirt below, moving towards them, and Ontario looked up.

Alberta was walking towards them, the expression on her face blank- _just like Saskatchewan, my god-_ but her eyes. Her eyes burned. Anger, hate….who the fuck knew?

Alberta walked up behind her two cities, reaching out and grabbing a rope in each hand. She looked Ontario dead in the eyes, as if challenging him to stop her, and she _pulled._

 ** _CRACK!_**

The steel pole crumpled along the dent and then hit its tensile strength- and _tore._

The post fell to the ground and slammed into the earth, kicking up a cloud of dust and flinging its occupant away from the epicenter.

Before the dust even had a chance to clear, the spurs were clattering across the dirt once more. Alberta moved fast- there were mere minutes left on the clock, and she didn't intend to waste it.

Alberta pounced on Canada's prone form, ripping his shirt off and flinging it aside to give her access to the explosive vest. The complicated contraption that held the bombs to his chest was mercifully secured in place with a releasable buckle, and she wasted no time in unbuckling it and flinging it as hard as she possibly could, far, far, far away from everyone involved.

Right over to where Slate was frantically tussling with the bull.

The vest hit the ground with a _thud_ near the Prime Minister, who promptly booked it away from the vest as quickly as he could. The bull, for its part, was sporting a brand new gash along the side of its neck, but tellingly, it collar was missing, lying on the ground nearby. Slate had succeeded in slashing it off.

The minute the vest landed, Slate took off like a shot, flinging his sword aside and running for the stage at the far end. He started to frantically climb the fence bars separating the arena from the stage, hopping up on top- and when he turned back, Ontario was hot on his heels, dragging Canada along the ground with help from Calgary and Edmonton.

Alberta wasn't behind them, however.

Manitoba was still lying on the cold dirt, still in agony as his body tried to frantically heal his fucked-up leg. He was all but certain the end was coming for him, be it from the bull or the sniper- and what had Alberta said to him when she'd left her post? "Don't move." Hah, hah. What a fucking riot.

Why did this shit always have to happen to him?

The spurred boots that had clacked away from him not too long ago came clacking right back, and to Manitoba's surprise, he found himself looking up at his sister again. She didn't even bother speaking; just knelt down and scooped him up in her arms, bridal-style. Manitoba was a bit taller than her, so it was something of a harsh reminder of his sister's strength when she picked him up like he was a kitten.

Well, not really. She was clearly tired; but Alberta didn't even hesitate to ask if he was okay. She just scooped him up and ran for the stage.

 _"_ _I told you I'd get you out."_

She grunted those words to him as she ran, reaching the fence and holding Manitoba up. Hands, a gaggle of hands grabbed him and lifted him up and away, out of the danger zone.

There was a distant thundering of hooves, and he craned his neck over to see Alberta leaping up the fence bars just in time- the bull was thundering over, intent on stomping her into a pancake.

It pulled away just before slamming into the bars, apparently deciding that one splitting headache was more than enough. Manitoba was still staring out at the arena as the dozens of hands slowly lowered him onto the stage's smooth off-plastic surface, watching the distance blackish-greenish lump that was Canada's vest.

The clock had reached the final ten seconds, and the crowd had stopped screaming, the silence that filled the air intensifying second after second. All eyes were riveted on the small pile of bombs and wires in the middle of the stage, or the jumbotron locked onto said lump.

The bull was mercifully nowhere near the pile of explosives, still trying to leap onto the stage without any success. And as the final few seconds on the timer vanished into the ether, the crowd sucked in a collective breath-

The explosion was nothing short of spectacular. Calgary had been as good as his reputation indicated. This was a textbook Hollywood explosion, several different kinds of explosives mixed together to create a truly spectacular fireball that spiraled into the sky high above. The shockwave went straight into the dirt below and threw up a wall of dirt that leaped into the sky and rained down on the arena floor below.

That had been wrapped around Canada's chest not two minutes before.

Silence fell over the scene, and Slate turned to Alberta.

"Why did you-"

"Because I wanted to." She said flatly, "I helped you because I fucking wanted to, Slate. Remember that. I'm not your slave, I'm not your toy, and I'm not your piggy bank. Now you go back out east, and you tell that to Ottawa and everyone else in your little parliament. You tell them that all of this is _your last fucking warning."_

Alberta hissed those last three words, staring Slate dead in the eyes.

"You will tell that to them, Prime Minister. And then? And then you're going to step down. And You're going to call another election. And do you know why you're going to do all of that, Slate? Do you?"

He shook his head, and Alberta snarled and stabbed a finger in his face.

"You're gonna do it because you forfeited your life to me. You said as much to my face in front of two witnesses. So you're gonna do that, Slate, because you threw away your right to say otherwise. THAT is all I want from you."

Alberta straightened up, turning away from the PM and closing her eyes for a few seconds.

Before Edmonton could ask what the fuck she was playing at, Alberta opened them again and turned to Calgary.

"Cal? You got a jet for me at the airport?"

"Uh-"

"Corvus has Sasky and BC. And I'm sick and fucking tired of being used and abused by that man for whatever fucked-up reasons. So Calgary, you're gonna get me a fucking airplane, I'm gonna fly up to Fort Mac, and we're putting a stop to this fucking CATASTROPHE ONCE AND FOR FUCKING ALL! **_AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR, CALGARY?!"_**

Calgary gulped.

"G-give me an hour. I'll- I'll get you a jet."

"Good man."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _The closer we get to the end, the worse my writer's block gets…I wanted to have this done before 2017, but oh well. It's important to do it right, I guess. There's a lot of loose ends need tying up, but I'll get to that in the monstrosity of an epilogue. In the meantime, everyone brace yourselves, because we're gonna be catching up with Corvus next chapter. Yaaaay!_

 _Leave a review if you liked it or if you hate me, it helps me out a lot!_


	59. Chapter 59

**Chapter Fifty-Nine**

* * *

Saskatchewan screamed.

He didn't scream anything in particular; he just screamed in agony, because it fucking _hurt._ This cold little cabin that Corvus had lead them to, this hell he was trapped in without escape…

Alberta's demented premier was standing in front of him, and he was holding a straight-up cattle prod. There was no two ways about it; that was a goddamn cattle prod for goddamned livestock. And Corvus jabbed it into his sternum without a hint of mercy, without a shred of compassion at all for the man currently lashed to a steel frame in front of him.

Corvus smiled at him as he held the cattle prod in place for six agonizing seconds, twisting it a little bit as he sent god knew how many volts into the province's body.

He didn't stop convulsing even after the cattle prod was pulled away, the aftershocks of the electricity sending faulty signals to his muscles and causing them to spasm. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air, and Saskatchewan didn't want to look down at the hideous burn mark he knew was waiting for him.

"Now then, my boy, let's dispense with these theatrics. I need something from you, a number you've got stashed away in that little tiny brain of yours. I need your premier's personal phone number. Can you remember what it is? Or are you too stunned to manage, you little rat?"

Saskatchewan looked up, a cold horror in his eyes.

Corvus had pulled his phone out with his free hand and was holding it up as if he was taking a picture- a picture of him. A crimson flush worked its way down the farmer's stony face and down to his chest; he was stark fucking naked and slung helplessly on this monster's rack like a side of beef, and now…this? Pictures of him, pictures that he was presumably going to send to Saskatchewan's boss?

 _"_ _Go fuck yourself-"_

"I don't think I will, you little worm. **_Tell me the number."_**

Corvus hissed and jabbed him in the nipple with the prod again, holding it in place and listening to Saskatchewan's screams of agony, as the electricity burned at his flesh and tore at his muscles. His immortal heart was stuttering, the delicate electrochemical pulses that kept his cardiac muscle working interrupted by the massive flow of outside electricity. And as the province writhed and howled, Corvus held up his phone with a twisted little smile and took another picture.

He pulled the prod away as soon as the photo of the man in agony was safely squirreled away in his cellphone's memory, smiling sweetly at his captive and opening up the call screen.

"Well?" he purred, "Are we going to co-operate now, little worm?"

Saskatchewan's flush deepened. He clenched his jaw, willing himself to keep his straight face. No. No. No. No. No. He couldn't give in. Not now. Not-

"Hmm, you're a stubborn one, I'll give you that."

Corvus turned away from the blonde for a moment, letting him hang there in space, naked and afraid.

Saskatchewan turned his head to follow his captor's sight line- and his blood ran cold.

There was a tall red Remington gunsafe there, next to a workbench. A gunsafe that looked large enough to accommodate a person.

Corvus wasn't-

The premier walked over to the safe, a strange expression on his face as he entered the code and twisted the pronged wheel, opening it up and letting Saskatchewan have a good look of the thick door, the five huge pins holding it in place, and the three or so guns inside. Corvus put his phone in his pocket and rested his prod on the table, and set to work emptying his safe of all the weapons and ammunition stored within.

And Saskatchewan's stoic face shattered.

"I- I'LL TELL YOU!"

Corvus turned around, a smirk on his face as he placed two of his rifles on the table.

"You will, hm?" He said, pulling out the third and a box of ammunition.

"Yes! Yes, just please- please-"

Corvus turned around, and brown eyes locked onto green. The premier could see the fear in the eyes of his prey, could see real terror for the first time since he'd dragged his two captives into the concrete-floored basement of his little cabin in the woods.

Corvus smiled and pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocking it and pulling up the call screen.

"Wonderful, my boy. Wonderful. Why don't you enlighten me then?"

Saskatchewan squeezed his eyes shut and pushed out a shaky breath, desperate to look anywhere but at that twister monster or the hell he was trapped in.

"It's, uh, it's three-oh-nine, seven-eight-seven, nine-four-three-three." The numbers came out in a strange melody, like Saskatchewan had committed it to memory by making a little ditty around it; and Corvus typed each number in dutifully, pressing the little green icon to make a call and stepping back.

There was silence as the phone rang, and Saskatchewan looked up and looked over at the cage.

The basement they were trapped in was rectangular, and had been put in beneath a new-looking wooden cabin in the forest with a fairly normal top floor. Corvus had mentioned something about buying the plot and building a new cabin out of the timbers of the old, complete with a little room in the basement full of his "collection."

That room was where they were trapped, underneath a locked wooden trapdoor; the floor was cold concrete, with a whole corner of the basement taken up by a small cell meant for a single occupant, with reinforced bars and a reinforced door that currently held a single person.

The minute he looked at British Columbia, she just snarled at him and turned away, stabbing an ice-cold dagger into Saskatchewan's heart. He'd betrayed her trust and pulled her into this mess, and now she was going to pay for his mistake. He watched as she leaned her back against the bars, reaching up to press her hands tight over her ears; he couldn't blame her for not wanting to hear what came next.

Corvus's phone stopped ringing and he finally connected to someone, if the pleased look on his face was any indication. Saskatchewan shuddered as the premier winked at him.

"Hello, Mr. Mauer. Pleasure speaking with you. I hope my cellphone's reception is acceptable? I'm on wifi at the moment, since I happen to be underground."

There was a pause, and Saskatchewan started to strain against his shackles in desperation, fear and shame spreading his flush further down his chest. He was going to tear rents into his own skin if he didn't stop soon, but animal panic wasn't something that was easily reasoned with.

"That's very rude of you. I am a premier as well, you know, and I would ask you to treat me with the same respect I'm giving you, sir."

There was another heart-stopping pause-

"Could you stop swearing at me, you insufferable parasite? Fine, I'll cut the shit. _I have your province._ And should you wish to see Mister Saskatchewan again with his sanity _intact_ , you'll follow my demands to the letter, do you understand me?"

Corvus scowled at the response that followed- it was too muffled for Saskatchewan to make out precisely what it was, but it was clear his premier was shouting something less than polite.

Corvus pulled his phone away from his ear, the call apparently still running, and opened up another app, tapping a few things with a smirk and holding it back up to his ear.

"Shut your _whore mouth_ , you insolent little fool. You're so ungrateful, after all the effort I've put in to lay the groundwork for our independence. Check your text messages- yes, you can do that while there's still a call running, you mentally-challenged _half-chimp_!"

The pause that followed was enough for Corvus's face to sprout a huge, twisted smile.

"Yes, my dear Mister Mauer, that's precisely what you think it is. I have your province, as I said. Would you like to speak to him? Hmmm…."

Corvus nodded and pulled the phone away from his head, tapping the surface to enable speakerphone.

Instantly the tinny voice of Saskatchewan's boss filled the room, and he was terrified.

 **"SASKATCHEWAN?!"** Premier Mauer shouted, **"WHAT THE FUCK'S HE DOING TO YOU!?"**

"He's- he's- I-"

Saskatchewan spluttered as Corvus reached over and picked up his cattle prod, winking at him.

Saskatchewan started panting, desperately swallowing the whimper that wanted to escape his throat.

"I'm- I'm fucking scared. Fuck. Just- help me- Call- Call the army, Call- _**CALL SOMEONE-"**_

And then Corvus lunged, stabbing him square in his sternum and tearing a wail of agony from his throat. He thrashed, screaming and screaming in a pain that never seemed to end. It burned at him, burned at his flesh, burned at his fucking soul-

And just like that, it was over, the prod pulled away and Corvus walking over to his bench and flipping a switch on it, still holding the silent phone as he did so.

The room filled with the frequency, Saskatchewan noted grimly, his heart sinking even further in his chest. Oh god no…

"Now then, Mister Mauer…" Corvus began, "I apologize for my rudeness, I truly do. Listen carefully to my demands..."

* * *

Alberta closed her eyes, stretching out her mental antennae and feeling around for their presence. She could sense a few basic things, even when she was this high in the sky; BC and Saskatchewan were definitely somewhere outside Fort Macmurray. Alberta huffed out a sigh and opened her blue eyes again, scanning around the inside of the private jet she'd commandeered.

She couldn't narrow her radar down any further, not when she was this high up. Canada's radar flat-out switched _off_ aboard planes; Alberta's just got far weaker when her feet weren't touching the ground.

So 'somewhere outside Fort Mac' was at best a temporary arrangement. She'd soon have a better answer when the wheels hit the ground.

 _"_ _You're lucky I have dirt on one of the owners of Syncrude, sis…"_ Calgary had said to her as soon as he'd gotten off the phone, _"and we're both lucky he was watching the whole show. The jet's yours, but if you wreck it you're buying him a new one, got it? So, like, don't wreck it."_

Well, Alberta was only going one way on her borrowed jet, so wrecking it was somewhat unlikely.

She checked her watch. According to the pilots up front, they had another forty-five minutes to go.

Alberta gritted her teeth. Not long now...

* * *

Corvus hung up with a cruel smirk on his face, turning his attention back to Saskatchewan and beaming.

The province had gone dead pale, swallowing his terror in a single cold lump. His boss had gone from defiant screaming to confused capitulation in the space of about ten minutes, and it was all his fucking fault. _All of this was his fault._ **Everything.**

Saskatchewan let his head hang. He'd failed them all. The Prime Minister was **_dead._** His boss was going to pay Corvus a personal visit and leave one of the monstrous premier's drones. BC was shortly to suffer the same fate as him…

And Alberta? The one person he'd been trying his damndest to save, and he'd failed her. He'd failed his sister, his nation…himself.

Saskatchewan slumped in his bindings, his own thoughts doing to his spirit what Corvus had been trying oh-so-hard to accomplish for a good many hours. And that didn't escape the premier's notice.

"Contemplating our failures, are we?" Corvus chirped, sounding genuinely cheerful, "Let's start from the top, hmm? You let your sister escape Kingston-that was a mistake and a half. You came _here,_ with plenty of victims in tow for the bloodthirsty masses. You lead them to the slaughter like cattle, didn't you? Offered us ideas for what to do with them and everything. Manitoba, Quebec, Ontario, and Canada too; they'll never forgive you for your transgressions, my boy. And oh, the small detail that your Prime Minister is _dead_ and it's **_entirely your fault._** How delightful, hmm? And then, your little attempts at rebelling, at awakening the brainwashed masses from my spell- something impossible, I'd like to add- oh, _that_ was a **_grave_** mistake, Mister Saskatchewan. But your biggest mistake, by far…."

Corvus paused there and pulled a handgun out from the depths of his overcoat, pulling back the action to ensuring it was loaded. With a satisfied nod, he trained it on Saskatchewan's head and reached up to the frame, pressing a large switch on the side.

Without warning, the restraints around his limbs all released all at once, sending the shattered province tumbling towards the floor. Saskatchewan hit the concrete hard, mercifully not breaking anything in the process- but the jolt was enough to finally startle the first tears out of his traitorous eyes.

He looked up at Corvus, towering over him with an expression of rage and malice. The gun was still trained on his head-

"Your biggest mistake was occupying my house. Eating my food and drinking my drinks, sleeping on my chesterfield and getting blood on my floor. Pawing through my office and rifling through my things. And that bitch in the corner stuffed me in a **_DOG CRATE."_**

Corvus's face had gone red as a flame, and the end of his gun was visibly shaking.

"But I can forgive all that. I can forgive all those things, mister Saskatchewan. I was going to just tie you and your sister down to chairs and indoctrinate you without the cattle prod. I was going to. But then you made your gravest mistake of all, sir. You _THREATENED TO_ _ **DESECRATE MY MOTHER'S ASHES.**_ _"_

The rage on Corvus's face had Saskatchewan frantically scrabbling backwards, away from the madman and his gun-

Until his hands hit something an inch off the ground made of fabric instead of cement.

Corvus stalked towards him, gun still shaking in his grasp, and snarled:

"You're going to get in that goddamn safe and I'm going to close the goddamn door on you. I'm going to lock you in that tiny, airless box, and I'm going to let you sit in there for hour after hour after hour. Maybe you'll run out of air. Maybe I'll forget you in there. Maybe you'll die and come back and die and come back again and again and again and again and I'll drink in every last one of your **_FUCKING_** **SCREAMS**. **_BECAUSE YOU _****_THREATENED MY FAMILY!"_**

Saskatchewan took in a shaky breath, shuddering in terror. The dam had broken, the mask had shattered, and the weight of all his failures were piled high on his shoulders, and he screamed in terror.

He was babbling incoherently, desperately trying to fight Corvus as the premier kicked him and even fired a shot into the concrete next to him. The pleas, the begging and pleading, it flowed out of him like a river, a waterfall of desperate animal screams. But The battle was futile as he well knew, and even as Saskatchewan struggled and pushed-

The door clanged shut, sealing him inside the tall red safe. The blackness was absolute; he was trapped in the gunsafe and unable to get out.

And he screamed in terror, slamming both fists on the door. Animal panic had set in, desperation to be let out the only thought running through his mind. Saskatchewan screamed and screamed and screamed, the words long since lost out of his shattered mind. His heart hammered in his chest like a hummingbird's, his breathing in rapid, shallow gasps. The soft fabric of the gunsafe's interior was unyielding to his pounding, as he desperately tried to free himself from his own personal hell.

The walls were so tight around him, it felt like they were going to shrink and crush him, swallow him whole and compact his bones to dust. The air- was it getting thinner? It was getting thinner. He was going to die. **_He was going to die he was going to die diediediedieDIEDIE DIE_**

Saskatchewan screamed, terror and guilt and raw primal panic driving him to smash and claw at the walls of his prison until his fingernails broke and bled, until his arms and fists and face were bruised and bleeding- and still he kept going, trying with all his might to rip through metal. And it gave- his terror was such that he was channeling all his might, all his strength; his million souls and all their might were redirected into the door, denting and deforming the metal- but the door still held fast, the steel impossible for him to break from the inside.

And outside, Corvus calmly unloaded his handgun and holstered his weapon, turning to face BC in her cage.

"What unpleasant business, wouldn't you agree? Now, are you going to tell me your premier's phone number, or will I have to extract it from you?"

BC whimpered.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _I'm sorry._

 _(By the way, do you like the new cover art? I drew it myself. And as always, if you liked it, hated it, or want Corvus to go to town on me, be sure to leave a review! I really appreciate every single one I get!)_


	60. Chapter 60

**Chapter Sixty**

* * *

The private jet kissed the frosty earth, a raging storm building in the sky behind it. The city of Fort MacMurray was bracing itself, collectively, for the worst; the September sky could hold any manner of snowstorm, fueled by ice-cold arctic air.

There were three people aboard the plane. Two pilots, and one passenger. The minute the wheels hit the earth, Alberta was scanning for her siblings- and she locked onto them almost instantly. They were a scant half-hour outside of town, somewhere in the trees. She was going to need a vehicle.

Thank god for rentals.

* * *

Corvus turned his attention to BC, smiling down at her with that look of pure malevolence in his eyes.

"Now then, my dear, I'm going to be a little bit kinder to you, since I know that you were little more than an unwitting accomplice to dear Alberta's traitorous brother. That, and we'll be needing your access to the ocean in our new nation, hmm? So I'm inclined to be a little bit kinder to you, for that, if nothing else."

Corvus held up his phone expectantly, quirking an eyebrow at her.

"Your premier's phone number, Miss British Columbia?"

"Get FUCKED, you- you crowfucking piece of human FILTH! You're not getting my mind, you're not getting my people, and YOU! ARE! NOT! GETTING! MY! **_PREMIER!"_**

Corvus shook his head with a small, pitying smile on his face.

"That's where you're wrong, my dear. I'm going to get your mind. I'm going to convert your people, shatter their shackles and educate them to the truth. And I am going to do it through your premier. Miss Cleary is going to join me, and so will Mister Mauer, and soon, we three will split this abhorrent nation apart, spread our wings, and become a nation that is the envy of the world. We will be mighty, Miss BC, do you not understand me? We have the people, the culture, the manpower, the _money…_ we will make Canada weep, rising from the ashes of her bloated carcass as something far greater than she could ever hope to be. Do you understand the game I play now, my dear? Do you understand that you are little more than a cog in a machine far greater than your puny mind could even imagine? I am going to free us. I am going to make us mighty, make us great-"

"Make yourself fucking emperor of a nation of slaves?"

Corvus snarled and stabbed his finger at her in fury.

"You mind your tongue, or else I'll cut it out of your goddamned head."

"Try me, bitch. Go on, put a fucking gun to my head. You can't pull the fucking trigger. You need me alive, you need me in one piece, and I ain't telling you shit. You come in this cage and it'll be the last thing you fucking do-"

Corvus snarled, sizing up the raven-haired woman before him. And then BC stood up to her full height in that cage, staring down at him with her piercing green-brown eyes. She was a full inch taller than Alberta, a true giantess of a woman; and she stared down at Corvus with eyes that burned with hate.

"You know something, Crowfucker? YOU'RE the one who has no idea what the fuck he's doing. YOU'RE the one who's playing games he doesn't understand. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I AM, YOU PATHETIC LITTLE HUMAN!? _DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'RE FUCKING DEALING WITH?!"_

BC's voice thundered through the tiny basement, and she reached out and grabbed the bars, straining against them, desperately trying to bend them. She summoned her full might in that instant- channeling every ounce of her strength, every one of her four million souls pooling their collective strength into one explosive burst of power.

And to Corvus's horror, the cage started to _creak._

 _She was bending inch-thick solid steel bars._

Corvus panicked. He panicked and pulled out his gun and fired it, fired it at her, desperate to slay the dragon before it escaped. Pure human panic bloomed in his breast as he pulled that trigger, panic that was only heightened by the spray of warm blood that spattered on his face and clothes and hands.

And he opened his eyes to see her sprawled on the floor, panting weakly. The bullet had slammed into her shoulder, her arm hanging limply to the side. Blood, reddish blood was weeping out of the wound, pouring onto the floor and staining her clothes a dark red. And yet somehow, she was still alive.

BC rolled her head, staring up at Corvus and narrowing her eyes at him.

 _"_ _She'll come for you, Corvus. And when she does? When she finds you, when she learns what you've done, you're gonna WISH you'd let me snap your neck."_

Corvus chambered another round and stared right back, finally lording over her.

"She'll do no such thing." He said flatly, "She _can't._ I'm one of hers. _She can't touch me._ She can't hate me, she can't touch me, and she couldn't kill me even if she wanted to. Those are the rules, are they not? **Those are The Rules**. I can't kill Canada, I can't kill her, but I can kill you. I can kill you, I can torture you, I can do anything I want to you-"

BC hacked out a cough, floating on a cloud of shock and suppressed pain. And then the cough morphed into a laugh, high and cutting and wracked with pain.

 _"_ _Little boy, you know NOTHING of the demons you're dealing with."_

Corvus just snarled and looked her up and down, holstering his gun once more.

"Shut your mouth, you filthy little whore. I know FULL WELL what I'm dealing with. I know FULL WELL how malleable your kind is, how pliable and easily bent you are to the will of those superior to you. Just…shut the fuck up."

Corvus stomped over to the safe, frustration rolling off of him as he punched in the combination- and then fumbled his pistol back out of its holster again, scowl only deepening as he turned the knob and pulled it open.

A battered Saskatchewan spilled out onto the floor, tears streaming down his face and warbling sobs ripping out of his throat. His hands were bleeding and bruised from his desperate attempts to claw his way out of the safe, and the inside door was noticeably dented. Corvus just chambered a round and snarled in disgust.

"Get up on the rack, you pathetic animal. Look at you. You're filth, you know that? You disgust me. You haven't been in that safe ten minutes and you're already a wreck."

He watched as the green-eyed farmer crawled shakily towards the rack, trembling his fright. There was a look of horror in his eyes- the nightmares from this were going to follow him for years to come.

When the province was slow to get to his feet, the premier responded by grabbing him by the wrist with his free hand and hefting him up into a standing position.

"Turn around, you filthy little whore."

Saskatchewan slowly did, letting Corvus get a look at those shell-shocked green eyes. The premier didn't hesitate at all, shoving the province back onto the rack and lunging for the switch to snap the restraints shut again.

And as soon as Saskatchewan was affixed back on the rack, head hung low and tears soaking into his beard, only then did Corvus turn around to snarl at BC.

She'd managed to heft herself into a sitting position, back leaned up against the wall, and he met her gaze, human to personification.

"Now you listen and you listen good, you little bitch," He hissed, "You're going to tell me the number for your premier and I'm going to ensure Missy Cleary is marching along to the beat of my drum. And if you don't, you bitch, I'm going to get my scalpel and I'm going to start taking bits off of dear Saskatchewan here."

The threat wasn't a small thing, and both personifications looked up at him, the cold horror at the human's threat frozen in both their hearts.

BC sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. She was furious with Saskatchewan, but…he didn't deserve _that_. Not in the slightest.

"I- I'll tell you."

Corvus's snarl didn't waver.

"That's a good girl."

* * *

 _A short while later…_

Alberta let out a shaky breath, watching as the steam from her lungs coiled up into the rapidly cooling September sky. Her ice-blue eyes locked onto the small wooden cabin in front of her, squat and oblong and innocent-looking.

And in the basement...well, it wasn't terribly precise, but she could tell that Saskatchewan and BC were somewhere within ten meters of her, somewhere underground. And this cabin was the only thing in the silent pinewood that came even remotely close to human habitation.

She walked up to the door and gave a tug on the handle- locked, of course. Whatever.

Alberta snarled and reared back, slamming her shoulder into the door and ploughing inwards with a sound of shattering wooden timbers. Shards of broken pine flew into the darkened cabin, a cacophony of destruction underpinned by the yelps and swearing of two startled men.

Alberta stepped inside the cabin and found herself staring down the barrels of two shaking guns, held aloft by Corvus's two guards.

They looked at her in confusion and terror, ringed by the light glaring in from the broken door.

"You're not going to shoot me." Alberta said calmly, looking one guard in the eyes, and then the other. It wasn't a command. It was a statement of fact. She could feel their souls glowing before her, like candles in the darkness, and they were both _hers._ She couldn't touch them, and they couldn't touch her.

The guards looked at each other, then back to their province, both nodding shakily.

"Where's Corvus?"

"He- he's in the basement. Didn't- wouldn't let us come down unless he, uh, he rang." One guard stammered, pointing at a trapdoor in the floor with a rolled- up rug right next to it.

Alberta just nodded and walked over to it, kneeling down and pulling the handle with all her might. The wooden hatch gave, the steel latch locking it fast from the inside giving way with a thunderous CLANG. Alberta looked down the hole, the glare from fluorescent lights illuminating her face as her eyebrows narrowed.

And then a voice screamed out from the hole. A male voice, howling in agony. A voice Alberta recognized, a voice she knew more intimately than any other.

Saskatchewan was screaming, and he was screaming in agony.

The ember of rage in Alberta's breast ignited into a full-on maelstrom.

She jumped down the hole without waiting another second and started stalking down the steps into the basement, ears already pricked up at the continued sound of her brother's agony. The expression on her face had gone from irate to murderous, and she ended up jumping the last three steps, landing on the hard concrete.

Alberta glanced around the room and swiftly wished she hadn't.

BC was leaned against the wall, locked in a tiny cage with blood weeping out of a huge wound on her shoulder. Strangely, her sister province was grinning at Alberta, a look of distant smugness on her face; she'd doubtless gone into shock, since that was a huge wound on her shoulder. On a human, the wound- it looked like a gunshot- could well have destroyed the arm in question, necessitating its amputation.

"Hey, Allie. Good to see you." BC's tone was lazy, but a bit strained; but Alberta barely heard the words leave her sister's mouth.

Her eyes were fixed straight ahead on the sordid scene before her.

Saskatchewan was stark naked and covered with slowly-fading burn marks and slowly-sealing gashes. He was clamped onto a steel frame, spread-eagled; helpless to do anything to save himself.

He slowly lifted his head, and Alberta gasped, her heart breaking afresh.

Blue eyes met green, and she took in the tears streaming down his face, the desperation and pain and fear etched on every line of his expression.

"…Sis…" He croaked weakly, and Alberta lunged forwards, eyes locked on her twin. She swallowed a lump of tears that jumped to the front of her throat- she couldn't bear to see her twin so…so…so destroyed, so ruined, so broken and abused. She needed to get him off that rack, she just had to get him down, get him out, get him the hell away from his horrible, horrible place-

"Alberta, STOP. _That's an order."_

Alberta whipped her head to look at the source of the noise, and her eyes went wide.

Corvus was standing off to the side, a cattle prod in his hands and a look of…fear? Regret? It was a look that was decidedly more upset than she'd been expecting.

Instantly she froze in her tracks, ice-blue eyes taking in the look of her boss, her premier. His once-pristine suit, the white shirt soaked with BC's blood. The tired look in his eyes, his messy hair. And most of all, the expression of remorse on his face.

And instantly the suspicion burning in her chest blazed. He wasn't remorseful for ANYTHING, was he? He was just regretting the fact that she was here at all, and he'd gotten _caught._

"I order you to leave, Alberta. Don't release your brother. Don't release BC. Just. Get. Out." Corvus snarled, enunciating each word carefully. He craned his neck up to meet her gaze, brown eyes locking onto blue and finding a worrying amount of resistance there.

 _"…_ _Please help me, Alberta. Please. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I failed you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"_

Saskatchewan's voice was barely a whisper, chanting his mantra of apologies in desperation. Alberta didn't look at him, but she heard his words and the pain and fear and _defeat_ in his broken whisper.

And her gaze never left Corvus's eyes.

"Alberta, I said GET OUT. That's an ORDER!" Corvus roared, his face going red, "Stop making me repeat myself. We'll discuss what I'm doing down here LATER. I'm sorry you had to see this, but-"

 **"** **You're just sorry you got CAUGHT."** Alberta hissed in response, catching her premier off guard.

Corvus blinked. "I- No! For the love of god, I'm sorry. I didn't want you to see me doing this. I didn't want to hurt you. But some things need to be done for the good of all and this-"

 **"** **Was not one of them."**

Corvus took a step back, shaking a little- Alberta was surprisingly intimidating, and he'd never noticed it before. She was a fairly tall woman- an inch shorter than BC, but certainly taller than him.

Alberta was just staring into his eyes. And in her brain, in her blood, she heard them chanting. She could feel their demand, could feel their hate burning below her skin and in her heart and blood and mind and soul.

Corvus started to edge away from her, slowly scooting back away from her and slowly backpedalling towards the stairs. And she followed him- first with her head, tracking his motion as he inched around in a wide circle and then turning with her whole body when he'd started backing up wholesale.

"Alberta, I'm ordering you to leave. Just go. Get out." He said, a warning in his tone as he kept his eyes locked on her. The look on her face was making him uncomfortable, but…she couldn't hurt him. She couldn't. That was against the rules, moreso than defying his orders.

She caught his gaze again when he was two steps from the foot of the stairs, and suddenly, his legs locked up. Corvus couldn't move his legs as he stared into those cold blue eyes.

"Wh- Alberta! What are you doing?! Whatever the fuck you're doing, stop! STOP, ALBERTA! THAT'S AN ORDER! WHY AREN'T YOU OBEYING ME!?"

Off to the side, BC piped up.

"Hey, sis? I think that premier of yours is a bit short-sighted. I think he needs a little… _perspective."_ BC purred. And if the premier had looked, he would have seen a look on the western province's face that was nothing short of murderous.

Alberta didn't acknowledge BC in the slightest; she just kept staring into Corvus's eyes as she started walking towards him.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _The massive monthlong delay between chapters was due in part to a combination of writer's block and these last two chapters being exactly that: the ending. Are you ready for the end, guys? Are you? Because I'm fucking not. I'm really fucking not._

 _West Wind is_ done. _The last chapter is written, and I'm posting it tomorrow. I'm not prepared for this. This fic has been part of my life since before I started university, and more than a year later, here we are. I've grown a lot as a person and a writer while working on this thing, and I'm pretty sure it shows. But I hope you enjoyed the ride anyway, and I thank you all for continuing to read and leave your comments and feedback on this crazy epic._

 _I'm really grateful to you all. Thank you._

 _With that said, there will be some other chapters after this to wrap stuff up, and of course an epilogue. Don't worry, I'm not leaving it hanging on just next chapter._

 _And as always, if you liked it, let me know! Reviews are read and appreciated._


	61. Chapter 61

**Chapter Sixty-One**

* * *

Alberta wasn't smiling.

She wasn't frowning. She wasn't crying or laughing or making any expression at all.

She was blank.

And Corvus didn't know what about that was worse.

He opened his mouth, spluttering, desperate, afraid, as she walked closer, footstep over footstep, staring him dead in the eyes. And oh, oh god…her face was blank, expressionless, but those eyes.

There were….so many things in Alberta's blue eyes.

Hate.

Rage.

Fury.

Murder.

And Corvus couldn't look away. He realized it dimly, that Alberta had locked her eyes onto his and he couldn't- couldn't move his head, couldn't move his eyes, couldn't look away in the slightest. He was fixed in place like a statue, cold horror creeping up his neck.

"YOU."

Her voice was a nightmare. Nothing like the voice Corvus was used to. It was…demonic, almost. It sounded like the voice of a legion, like thousands of voices speaking the word all in unison. It echoed and warped and warbled and twisted, sounding male and female and old and young and _so, so ANGRY._

 _"_ _HOW DARE YOU. HOW FUCKING DARE YOU."_

The words were warped and twisted and Corvus wasn't even sure if he was screaming or crying or begging for mercy. Those blue eyes of hers were flat-out fucking _glowing,_ glowing brighter than the fluorescent lamps illuminating the room, glowing like bright blue lights in the darkness.

She was staring into his eyes as she walked closer and closer and he was still trapped, still trapped, couldn't move, couldn't BREATHE, couldn't blink couldn't-

Couldn't do anything. He was frozen. A statue, a breathing statue with a look of frozen horror on his face.

Distantly Corvus was aware of another sound, besides her words and her footsteps. And if he'd been able to look away, he would have seen Saskatchewan and BC desperately screaming at Alberta to stop, looks of horror on their faces as she continued to stalk towards her paralyzed prey.

 _"_ _YOU USED US AND YOU ABUSED US, CHRISTOPHER CRAVEN. WHAT SAY YOU IN YOUR DEFENCE?"_

He winced at the sound of his first and last name being used in concert like that- his true first and last name, the ones he'd spent a lifetime fleeing from; the font of painful memories that they held too much for him to bear most days.

"The- the rules!" he squeaked, his voice feeling powerless- it was barely a whisper, barely loud enough to carry over the constant echo of voices. Every time she spoke the echoes took almost a full minute to fade, and he was trying to talk overtop of that cacophony?!

"The rules! You can't- I'M ONE OF YOURS! I'm one of yours, and you- I'M YOUR PREMIER! **I COMMAND YOU TO STOP, ALBERTA.** STOP! STOP THIS RIGHT NOW-"

Alberta kept walking towards him, slowly, so slowly. She wasn't stopping. She was staring straight into his eyes, devouring the distance between them at a truly alarming rate.

 **"** **THAT'S AN ORDER, ALBERTA! STOP! I, PREMIER CHRISTOPHER CRAVEN, COMMAND YOU TO STOP AT ONCE!"**

She should have obeyed him. She should have stopped dead in her tracks. Corvus's heart was starting to hammer as he realized that his command had been heard and had been _ignored._

Impossible.

IMPOSSIBLE.

"YOU'RE BREAKING THE RULES, ALBERTA! YOU CAN'T TOUCH ME! YOU CAN'T-!"

She smiled at him, her lips curling up into a smile that showed entirely too many teeth. And Corvus didn't see regular human teeth in that maw, oh god no. He saw a row of jagged triangles, like the teeth of a shark, smiling at him.

"The rules have no power here. WE ARE NOT YOUR SLAVES, CORVUS. WE ARE NOT YOUR SLAVES. THIS LAND IS NOT YOUR KINGDOM AND WE, HER PEOPLE, ARE NOT YOUR SERFS. _YOU_ ARE BEHOLDEN TO _US,_ DO YOU UNDERSTAND, CHRISTOPHER?"

The voice of the legion coming out of her mouth would have brought him to his knees had he still been able to move. But whatever was holding him captive, it just wouldn't let go of him, wouldn't let him fall or falter.

And the people of Alberta weren't done speaking through their personification, he realized faintly. They weren't done.

" **WE ARE** ** _YOUR_** **MASTER IN THIS** ** _DEMOCRACY_** **.** ** _YOU ARE IN CONTEMPT OF OUR SOCIAL CONTRACT, AND WE HAVE_** **TERMINATED IT** ** _."_**

 **"** **I WAS TRYING TO SAVE YOU!"** he roared at them, "I WAS TRYING TO SAVE YOU ALL! I WAS TRYING TO BREAK YOUR SHACKLES, TO SET YOU FREE FROM A NATION THAT HATES AND DESPISES YOU! _I WANTED TO FREE US! I WAS ONLY TRYING TO HELP YOU ALL BE _**FREE! " **

**"** **YOU'VE DONE ENOUGH. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE, CHRISTOPHER. ****_WE'LL TAKE IT FROM HERE."_**

And just like that, the voice of the legion faded, instantly. The sound cut out almost as if it had been muffled from the start, and all that was left was Alberta staring into Corvus's eyes.

He knew exactly what had just happened. It had a name, an ancient name written in Latin in some of the ancient books.

Vox Populi.

And then those blue eyes gleamed, and Alberta crossed that final step and glowered down at him.

Corvus couldn't close his eyes. Couldn't look away. Blue eyes. Bright blue eyes, burning with ice-cold hate.

Alberta snarled and clapped her hands to the sides of his head, digging her fingernails into his scalp.

And then…

A voice in his mind.

 _Christopher Lucas Craven._

Her voice. Alberta's voice, speaking in his mind.

She sounded…sorrowful.

 _My premier. You are mine. Part of me. You are part of my soul, and I'm…I am sorry. For…this._

 _"_ _Why- why are you apologizing!?"_

He spluttered those words back to her, dimly aware that his mouth wasn't moving. But it sounded like he was speaking in reply to her, so what the actual-

 _I'm apologizing because…because I should. Because I must. Because you are mine. And I…we've failed each other._

 _"_ _Failed?! How-"_

 _Christopher. I offer you one final request. Anything that's in my power to give, you may have it._

Corvus's eyes filled with tears as the realization hit home. He was going to die here. She was going to kill him. Not snap his neck, just…end him. Somehow. This was it. This was the end.

A tear trailed down his face, rolling down his chin and falling onto his suit.

 _"_ _My- let me go? Please. Please let me go. Please don't kill me. Please. I don't want to die."_

 _You should have thought a bit harder about that before you_ tortured my brothers and shot my sister. **Before you tried to make me insane and tear my nation apart.** _You're_ _ **never**_ _leaving this basement, Christopher. Try again._

There was only one thing he wanted, then. From the depths of his mind, a memory pushed its way up to the surface. A scared little boy, weeping for his lost mother. Looking up into the eyes of a woman who was so alike to the parent he still mourned for.

 _"_ _I- I want-"_

 _You want the Crow Lullaby._

 _"_ _I-"_

The tears started to stream down his face, spilling down the track carved by the first one, dripping down his chin and splattering onto his suit and tie and undershirt. The piercing glare in her bright blue eyes seemed to soften a bit, but perhaps it was just his imagination.

Alberta took a breath, and started to hum the familiar melody- aloud. The melody she- she was taking it from his mind, from his memories, from the thoughts in his own head. The tune haunted him as it curled through the air, tasting of all the better times long since lost.

 _Three crows sat upon a wall,_

 _Sat upon a wall,_

 _Sat upon a wall._

 _Three crows sat upon a wall,_

 _On a cold and frosty morning…_

And in his mind, she crooned the lyrics he knew so well, sang the song that had rocked him to sleep so many nights in his childhood. The tears flowed faster as Alberta sang to him in that strange space between their thoughts, the words of the crow lullaby blending seamlessly with his memories of his mother singing to him, decades before.

 _The first crow couldn't fly at all,_

 _Couldn't fly at all,_

 _Couldn't fly at all._

 _The first crow couldn't fly at all,_

 _On a cold and frosty morning..._

Why couldn't she understand that he wasn't the one trying to hurt her? Why couldn't she understand that he was the only one who cared about her, who wanted her to be free and strong and mighty. He was going to take her worthless siblings with them, just so she wouldn't be lonely. Just for her. Why couldn't she understand?!

 _The second crow fell and broke his jaw,_

 _Fell and broke his jaw,_

 _Fell and broke his jaw._

 _The second crow fell and broke his jaw_

 _On a cold and frosty morning…_

The father he'd never known, the man who…his father had been a construction worker, apparently. A bull of a man, selfish and callous, his only good point being his good looks. He'd fallen off a ladder and smashed his face in a few months after Corvus was born. He'd never seen so much as a photo of the man, a piece of his past that now he'd never find closure for.

 _The third crow was calling for his ma,_

 _Calling for his ma,_

 _Calling for his ma._

 _The third crow was calling for his ma_

 _On a cold and frosty morning…_

She kept singing, and Corvus so wished he could close his eyes and just remember. The pebble beach with his mother, turning over rocks and looking for fossils and shells and tiny sea animals. She loved him so, even if she was a woman of such meager means. His mother. Each word of the melody was like a gift from beyond the grave.

He wanted her ashes to be returned to the graveyard overlooking the beach there, back in Cape Breton. He wanted his ashes to be buried beside her. He'd bought two plots, decades ago, one for his mother and one for him, telling himself that someday, someday he'd be able to part with his mother's ashes. Someday he would.

He wanted to go back to Cape Breton. He wanted to see the ocean again. He wanted to see the town he grew up in, the school he attended. The fishing boats. The pebble beach. The sun shining through the trees in summertime.

He would never go back, would he? His mother would…she wasn't going back home. He had failed his mother. He'd defied her will out of his own desperate, selfish need, and now….now he couldn't give his mother the funeral she'd wanted and he'd been unable to afford.

Christopher's tears weren't even fear. They were guilt, and shame, and grief.

 _The forth crow wasn't there at all,_

 _Wasn't there at all,_

 _Wasn't there at all._

 _The forth crow wasn't there at all_

 _On a cold and frosty morning._

Nothing existed except for those blue eyes and the song. The basement, the government, the politics, the prisoners…his hate, his rage, his desire for control and power, all of it slipped away. The lyrics wound their way around him, splinters of his stolen past. His hourglass was nearly empty now, the last few words as grains of sand slipping through the glass into the bottom. And no hand would be there to flip it back over again.

 _That's all I know about the crows,_

 _Know about the crows,_

 _Know about the crows._

 _That's all I know about the crows_

 _On a cold and frosty morning._

The song drew to a close, and Alberta's humming stopped, the last note fading slowly.

And in his mind, she spoke.

 _I will return your ashes to the cemetery in Cape Breton, and your mother will lie beside you._

Christopher sobbed, the sound escaping his chest, forcing its way through the strange paralysis that she had cast over him.

 _"_ _Thank you."_

The only acknowledgement he received was a slight dip of her head, the white cowboy hat bobbing slightly.

And then Alberta's expression changed. The mercy, the softness, the kindness, it all dribbled away. Not a mask, per se, but the remorse of someone forced to do the unthinkable finally giving way to their rage.

Alberta's fingernails dug into his scalp so hard they drew blood, but that was the least of Christopher's concerns.

 _"_ _DO YOU KNOW WHAT I AM, CHRISTOPHER?"_

Her voice resonated in his mind, the booming thought echoing off the inner walls of his skull and drowning out all his other thoughts.

He screamed.

 _"_ _I am so much more than you could ever hope to be. I AM ETERNAL. I AM EVERLASTING. I AM STONE AND FIRE AND IRON AND FLESH AND BLOOD, I AM WAR AND PEACE AND DEATH AND BIRTH AND EVERYTHING THAT MOVES AND CRAWLS AND BREATHES ON MY BACK. I AM MADE OF_ STONE _, HUMAN. I AM MADE OF STONE AND ICE AND_ **FIRE.** _"_

His mind was flooded with...sensation. Feeling. She had opened her thoughts to him, he realized; she'd been hiding her true mind from him up to that point, screening off her thoughts as a final kindness to him. Because now, now he was a part of her, now he was truly in her mind…and…

She-

It.

It was vast.

It was so, so much vaster than his tiny little body, and he could FEEL every inch of it, feeling it as though it was HIS skin, HIS back. Every blade of grass erupting from the soil of the prairie, every mossy stone forgotten in a rancher's pasture and left to grow lichen. The pumpjack in Nichollson's field by Turner Valley. He knew that man's name, he knew of the pumpjack…and _every other pumpjack_. And every other name. And every other field. And EVERY OTHER ROCK AND BLADE OF GRASS AND EVERY SINGLE TREE-

There was no more Christopher. There wasn't even Alberta.

there was just

the glaciers rolling over his skin, scouring the earth clean the first nations moving their camps across his back to chase the buffalo and to the north the Athabasca filled with water and the whooping cranes nested on her shores and under the soil _fire, liquid fire_ bubbled and boiled and seeped to the surface, scooped up in birchbark buckets and painted on the sides of canoes by the local natives

 **NO PLEASE STOP**

and the mighty lizards slept in the soil under his skin, their eternal life catalogued in the layers of his flesh and etched into his bones, the white man arriving with his science and his technology and burrowing into his bones to resurrect the precursors to the birds naming them and cataloguing them and learning and growing

 **MY NAME IS CHRISTOPHER I'M NOT-**

they dug into his back and made him theirs, built their cities on his skin and burrowed into his flesh and drained from his blood the fire of the gods _and yet he still loved them_ because they gave his body a mind to go with it and awoke him from the soil where he slumbered and

 **MY NAME IS CHRISTOPHER LUCAS CRAVEN**

he was so small so small this body was so small, smaller than the trees, smaller than the stones, smaller than the smallest ponds. The earth below his feet sang with her power and he could hear its song. He could feel it, feel it under his skin, feel every inch of the vast forest and the rolling plains, feel the three million humans crawling across the surface like ants living on his body.

And then he heard their heartbeats.

Christopher screamed in agony.

Every heartbeat every LAST ONE all out of sync but sometimes in unison for a few beats just THUMPTHUMTHUPMTHUMP and it was so loud it was SO LOUD every last one joining and swelling into an almighty crescendo of noise a cacophony of drumbeats all screaming in his mind, every pulse of every heart welling up love in his breast but it was _so painful and it hurt so much_

And for a fraction of a second he had a snatch of clarity, a fraction of an instant to look her in the eyes and see the bright blue boring its way into his skull. For a final, stolen second, he was cognizant of himself; _a human being on his knees before a monster._

And then he saw the wind.

He was an old barn abandoned in someone's field, an ancient construction that had stood a hundred winters but whose time was now up. And in the distance, he saw the storm. The bright blue sky was a perfect dome all around him, the sun shining down; marred only by that gray smudge just abreast of the horizon. And time blurred for him and he watched it grow, bigger and bigger, hour over hour, the soft light grey darkening and deepening as the storm grew and grew and grew, the might of the prairie finally revealing herself to him. And then it was on top of him.

And the west wind howled.

The hail punched holes in his roof, fist-sized pieces of ice tearing into the walls and floor. The wind blasted the planks off the sides and blew the door open, and inside, rotten timbers finally gave in, the berms holding the roof's shape and anchoring the structure to the earth below it finally giving way to termites and rot. And the old barn groaned, cracking apart; the roof blew off, shingles flying high up into the sky as the timber roof sailed through the air, buoyed by the gale. It kissed the earth and smashed apart on impact, rotten wood spraying in all directions as the barn itself caved in and blew away.

And all that was left was debris.

Alberta let go of the head in her hands, her fingernails pulling out of the rents they'd torn into his skin.

Christopher's dark brown eyes were glassy and blank, a look of frozen terror on his stiffened face.

Alberta released him and let the corpse drop onto the concrete, looking up to meet BC's horrified gaze.

Corvus was dead.

* * *

 _A/N: Last chapter I said this fic was done. I was lying. There's still a few more chapters to go as well as the epilogue, so don't tune out just yet._

 _Leave a review if you liked it! This chapter has been in the planning stages for literally_ an entire year. _So I hope you enjoyed it, and please do let me know! Every review gives me a kick in the pants to write a bit faster and make time for it._

 _Next Time (Remember when I used to do these?): Eddy gets in shit for all that lawbreaking he did! Alberta gets her caretaker on! Shelly is in some deep shit! Keith has a beer!_


	62. Chapter 62

**Chapter Sixty-Two**

* * *

 _Meanwhile…_

Keith took a sip of his beer and relaxed, nodding at the barkeep and fixing his eyes on the screen in the airport bar. Not a lot of people had bothered to come to work that day, but those who had were crammed around TV screens just like that one. They'd all seen the show, and Keith had been privy to the unusual experience of watching everyone around him come to the same conclusion simultaneously.

The bar's TV was still tuned to the channel showing areal footage from the Grandstand as the newscasters chatted and discussed what it meant and what was going on, (both sounding very confused, if the subtitles were anything to go by) and Keith took another sip of his beer.

Walt was seated next to him, and he elbowed his captain in the ribs.

"So…I take it that we're not going anywhere?" the First Officer asked, gesturing at the beer, "Because you know the rules. You can't fly like that."

Keith shrugged. "We're not going anywhere anytime soon, Walt." He gestured at the TV screen. "That lunatic is finished. That guy, Eddy…guess his lunatic plan worked. Corvus is probably making a run for it across the border into the Territories, if he's smart. And if Corvus DOES come back to the airport, I bet you dollars to doughnuts that he'll be mobbed and beaten to death. Get yourself a beer. We've got time to kill."

Walt just nodded, waving over the bartender as the pilot reclined and sipped on his drink.

"…You think Shelly's actually down there?" Walt asked, gesturing at the TV.

"I hope not." Keith's face darkened. "If I ever see Edmonton again, I'm gonna knock him flat. He fucking chloroformed us and ran off with my wife."

Now that Keith was thinking about it, yeah, Edmonton was going to be on the receiving end of one hell of an ass-kicking when he got around to it. And actually, wasn't Jason-

Oh, **fuck.**

Keith fumbled for his phone, yanking it out of his pocket and frantically dialing his home number. He still had a land-line phone in his house, just in case something like this arose, and he needed to call Jason or a babysitter, for whatever reason.

Three heart-stopping rings later, and-

"Hello?"

Keith breathed a massive sigh of relief as the kindly voice of an older woman floated up through the phone.

"Hi, Sandra? Is that you?"

"Yes, it is Keith! Where in goodness's name are you? Little Jason came toddling over to my house this morning and rang my doorbell asking for breakfast, and I've been waiting for you to call all day now!"

"I'm- I'm in Fort Mac. Listen, is he- is he safe? Jason-"

"Oh yes, he's just fine, in fact. Would you like to speak with him?" Sandra pulled away from the phone, and called his son's name. Keith was just grateful that the retired nurse was living right next door to them, and didn't happen to own a television at all.

There was a rustling as the corded phone was passed from their elderly neighbour to Keith's son, and the pilot breathed a sigh of relief as Jason chirped, "Hi, dad!"

"Hi Jason. You doing okay? Do you know where your mom is?"

"Noooo…Momma left the house this morning with this big guy in an Oilers jersey."

"Subtle…Okay, right. Daddy'll be home…uh…I'll be home tonight, hopefully. Could you pass the phone back to Mrs. Watson now?"

"Okay, papa!"

Hearing that his son was safe and sound was a huge relief and a massive weight off of Keith's shoulders. He waited patiently as his son handed the phone back to their elderly neighbour, drumming his fingers on the tacky bartop.

"Hello? Mr. Price?"

"Hi, Sandra. Listen, I hate to be a huge pain in the butt, but um…you know the big thing that went down at the Grandstand today?"

"Oh, yes. I was listening to it on the radio."

"Cool, that's- yeah. Can you, uh, can you watch Jason for awhile? I don't know when I'll be back in Calgary, but it won't be any longer than two days at the most. I'll probably be back tonight, actually. If uh, if you need me to pay you or something- I'm so sorry to ask this, I really didn't want to leave Jason alone, but I really didn't have a choice."

"Oh, don't worry about money, dear. I'll look after him, don't you worry. You just fly home safe and you can tell me all about it when you get here."

"Oh, thank god…okay, thank you so much, Sandra. Feel free to help yourself to anything in the fridge, and Jason's bedtime is at 8:00 PM. And don't let him play on his DS all afternoon."

"I won't, don't you fret, dearie. See you soon!"

And with that, she hung up.

Keith let out a massive sigh of relief.

"Well, that's one thing taken care of."

Walt took a sip of his beer and patted Keith on the back in support.

"And now, the wife?" His co-pilot suggested.

"How'd you fucking guess..." Keith muttered, picking her name from his list of contacts and holding the phone up to his ear.

Seven rings in, and finally she picked up.

"Hey, Shelly…you okay?"

"…Keith? Not a good time." She snapped, her voice sounding strained.

He frowned. "Why? What's wrong?"

"I'm currently being fucking arrested. And if you don't get your ass down here RIGHT NOW I swear to god I am going to- to- I'm gonna buy one of those fucking rings with a lock on it and staple it to the base of your fucking dick _\- get your hands off me!-_ Because **Redmonton** over here went and fucking let the cop out of his truck and now here I am getting arrested along with him and _-I'm talking to my husband, will you give me a damn minute-_ Basically I'm about to be detained and I don't care if you flew Corvus to Timbuktu. You better get your ass back down here because I really don't want to be stuck in a jail cell with this idiot for _any longer than necessary!"_

And with that, Shelly hung up.

Keith stared at the phone in his hands and looked up at Walt helplessly.

Walt took another sip of his beer.

"So I take it we're flying under the influence?"

"Let's just say if I don't get back to Calgary sharpish the wife's gonna rip my control column out of my cockpit. Grab your shit, we gotta _go."_

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Yeah it's been months but again, I'm in university: please cut me some slack. I'm trying, people. Here's some shit I banged out while failing to study for my math exam. I figured we could all use a little breather, so here's Keith having that beer I promised._

 _Next time, Alberta has a shitty time of things_ _:D_

 _As always, if you liked it and you want more, leave a review! I read every single one and cherish all of them quite a bit!_


	63. Chapter 63

**Chapter Sixty-Three**

* * *

Alberta pulled the switch on the side of the steel frame and scrambled to catch her twin as he fell off the rack. Immediately she wrapped her arms protectively around him, the well of tears that had been threatening to spill over finally pouring out. Alberta reached up and took her cowboy hat off, letting Saskatchewan bury his face in her shoulder and cry. She lowered them both to the floor slowly, letting her twin cling to her like she was the last lifeboat on a sinking ship. His hands were clutching fistfuls of the back of her sweater, essentially trapping her there as he howled in anguish.

Alberta didn't want to push him away, but BC was still bleeding really badly and she needed to take care of that first, or at least get her sister out of there and call them an ambulance.

It was with extreme reluctance that Alberta let go of her twin, trying to push him away only for him to cling harder and dig his nails in.

"Sasky…I gotta go help BC…" She murmured quietly, unaware of the tears falling from her own eyes, "I gotta find your clothes too…."

He was still naked, after all, and it set off a fresh round of hatred in Alberta's heart. But the monster who'd done this to her brother was dead, finally, finally dead, and he couldn't hurt Sasky ever again.

Her brother's grip on her shirt loosened, and Alberta took the opportunity to slip out of his grasp and run over to Corvus's body.

Now was not the time for introspection; now was the time to find the key to her sister's cell. Alberta rummaged through Corvus's pocket, finding what she sought in his left pants pocket, straightening up and running to BC's cage.

The lock yielded with a faint click, and she tore the door open, crouching down next to her sister, eyes wide and confused.

BC's eyes slowly focused on her face, and to Alberta's surprise, the elder province smiled weakly.

"Guess Sasky's plan worked, eh?"

"What?! No, it- that was Edmonton, that wasn't- whatever! Let's just get you out of here. I- I can't carry you. Oh, god…"

Panic was beginning to bloom in Alberta's chest, her eyes wide as she whipped her head around the room. There was a first-aid kit on the overly long wooden table, next to the pile of guns, but- what was she supposed to do with it?! She didn't know any first aid beyond putting on a band-aid, and during the war, she'd never been a nurse-

"Sis." BC's voice cut through her panic and confusion, and Alberta whipped her head around to look at her sister.

"Allie. Calm the fuck down. I'll be fine."

BC didn't _sound_ fine, and that alone was making the blonde start to panic a bit more. Sasky wasn't moving behind her, curled in a ball and shivering against the concrete, and Alberta wasn't sure what the fuck she was supposed to do.

"I- I can't call an ambulance…" she said, cold realization dawning on her face, "I don't know where- I- Fuck! I don't know the name of this road, it'll take an hour to get here-" she grabbed at her hair, knocking her hat slightly askew, and trying frantically to wrestle her breathing back under control.

"Sis. Allie. Focus." BC coughed, her voice cracking, "Look, just- Not gonna lie, this is starting to really fucking hurt-"

"Can you walk?!" Alberta asked urgently, "I mean-"

BC tried to move, raising up her uninjured shoulder- and cried out in agony, falling back onto the concrete, her good hand grabbing at the wound and recoiling.

"…No. I- I think I can walk, but I don't- I can't get up."

Alberta nodded. "I- Okay. Can you- if I get you up, can you stand?"

"Yeah, but like…Not for long." BC grunted, letting out a low whimper of pain.

Alberta nodded, whipping her head around the room, her eyes falling on Saskatchewan's clothes.

"Okay. Okay. Alright. Hang on a second, okay? It's- it's getting cold, I'll just-I'll get Sasky dressed and, and then- We'll- I got a truck, okay?"

That was only partly true. The correct thing to say is that Alberta had _essentially_ stolen a vehicle, walking up to the counter at a rental company, looking the guy working there dead in the eye, and saying something to the effect of "I need a fucking truck and I need it _right fucking now."_

He was one of hers.

He'd capitulated.

Alberta's hands shook as she gathered up her brother's clothes and rushed them over to him, doing her level best to not look at Corvus's…corpse.

No. Not now. There would be time for that train of thought later. After she had tended to the needs of the living, then she could spare a thought for the…for the dead.

Alberta crouched down next to Saskatchewan, shaking her brother's shoulder.

"Sasky? Sasky, you gotta- you gotta get dressed. I'm- I'm gonna get you out of here."

* * *

 _Meanwhile, in Calgary…._

Two weeks ago, she'd been Corvus's right-hand woman.

Two weeks ago, she'd overseen the imprisonment of Canada and Ontario, made the needed arrangements to ensure that they and the Prime Minister

Today? Today, it all had gone so horribly wrong.

"Misses Knotley, what are your orders?!"

The greenhorn was desperate, his eyes full of fear. The weapon slung over his shoulders was too big for him, the uniform on his back poorly tailored to his size. He'd picked up a torch for a cause he didn't truly understand.

Again, the mob outside their little room hammered on the door, the bar that had been threaded through groaning and flexing under the strain, threatening to finally buckle. The pile of chairs and filing cabinets and other shit they'd piled in front of the door shuddered too.

And she didn't know what to do. ucking hurt- " frantically to wrestle her breathing back under control.

They'd been holed up in this little room in the Grandstand for several hours now, the beating on the door only getting louder and more insistent. The jig was up, and the people of Alberta were out for Reformationist blood. She could hear their voices through the steel of the door, could hear the sounds of booted feet and the sounds of machinery being used to try to cut it down. Their makeshift barricade wasn't going to hold; it simply wasn't.

"I- I don't know." She stammered in reply. Outside, to her horror, there was a loud, mechanical screaming- someone had found a power saw, and they were finally cutting down the door.

She grabbed her two-way radio off her belt in desperation, pressing the button.

"Hello!? Hello, can anyone hear me?! This is Inspector Knotley, I need- I need backup. They're- they're coming through the door, It's not- Can anyone hear me?!"

There was a heart-stopping pause, and then a crackle of static, and then-

 _"_ _We're comin' for ya, you little rats. Strong and free. Strong and free. Strong and free-"_

Knotley dropped the radio on the floor, fumbling for her sidearm frantically as the door finally came crashing down- into the hallway. They'd cut the hinges off, and now all that was left was a pile of random office crap thrown haphazardly into a pile. The mound of stuff was only about half the height of the door, and both the Inspector and the Greenhorn backed towards the wall in terror as their assailants surged over the mass of rubble.

It wasn't some crack squad, either. There was a maintenance man for the Grandstand, surrounded by dozens of others, many of them just regular patrons on the hunt for anyone even remotely related to the Reformationists.

Time blurred.

The greenhorn screamed and touched off a few rounds, bullets sailing far from their marks and smashing into the concrete of the floor and ceiling and walls. The Inspector barely had time to react to it herself, not even managing to fire off a round in her own defence before the seething mob of Albertans grabbed her and her lackey by their sea-green coats and dragged them into the hallway.

* * *

Alberta growled with determination, teeth bared as she channeled her strength to lift her heavier sister up the steps. Alberta was strong, very strong; but British Columbia was _heavy,_ at least for their kind to lift. A human trying to pick up BC would find her a bit heavier than a normal person; but Alberta was currently trying to heft a million more souls that she herself possessed.

BC's blood was dripping onto her shirt and pants and fuck, this was her good shirt, too; she hadn't had time to change out of her Grandstand outfit. Fuck!

Halfway up the steps and her arms were starting to really ache. But there was some hope- the guards, Corvus's guards, at the top of the stairs. Alberta could see the top, she could see the open trapdoor, and if she didn't get some help right fucking now, she was going to collapse.

"Hey! Hey- please- I need some help over here!" Her voice was raspier than she would have liked, but it got the point across. Her foot hit the topmost step, and she craned her neck up in desperation. Two humans peered down at her, hands reaching down and taking BC out of her arms.

"Just- watch her. Don't- Call an ambulance or something, if- if you can-" she started, looking up at the both of them desperately.

"Fuck, her shoulder- you sure she's-?"

"Yes! Yes, she's fine, she'll be fine, just- just call an ambulance, call a helicopter, call something, please!"

God she hated sounding like this, begging others for help; but she didn't know where they were in a way that would be useful to a 911 dispatch. 'The cabin in the forest above the old hunting camp by the pinewood' was not particularly helpful to a human without an instinctive feel for the terrain.

To her relief, one of the guards put his gun down and pulled out his phone, dialing in a number and holding it up to his ear. Alberta just huffed out a sigh of exhausted relief, turning around and ignoring the pain in her screaming legs to run back down the stairs.

Saskatchewan was still curled in a ball on the floor, Alberta's jacket still thrown haphazardly overtop of him. She'd found his clothes and he still hadn't moved- he was just sat there, shaking.

"Sasky. Sasky, we- we gotta go. Help is on the way. You gotta- you gotta get dressed, Sasky. Please get up. Please-"

Alberta dropped to her knees by his side, eyes full of fear. Why wasn't he moving? Was he hurt?

"Are you okay?! Did he- did he hurt you-?"

Alberta grabbed her brother's shoulder, rolling him over so she could see his face. The burn marks from the cattle prod were already gone, healed away with supernatural speed- but that wasn't what had him broken up. There was a look in his green eyes, a look of pain and fear- he was scared, haunted, hurt. The bright shine had been dulled, and it twisted her heart. She needed- she needed to get him dressed, and she needed to get him out of here.

"Sasky, please- please- You gotta-"

She grabbed his shirt from the pile, offering it to him in desperation. He wasn't moving. He's lifted her head to look at her, but he wasn't saying anything, he was just dead silent. Wasn't moving. Was _breathing,_ but that was about it.

Something wet was running down her face as she unbuttoned the collar of her twin's polo shirt, and Alberta didn't even care what it was. There was something dripping onto the fabric, but it wasn't blood, so it wasn't important. She jammed the shirt over his head desperately, fumbling with the buttons as she tried to get it buttoned up. It wasn't- this-

"Sasky, please- please- Please snap out of it. Please. Please wake up. Please-"

Alberta grabbed the sides of his head, staring straight into those dull green eyes, tears streaming down her face as she pleaded with him to please, please snap out of it, please wake up, please-

"You- Everything's fine. Manny's- Manny's fine. Manny's alive. Slate's alive. So is Onty. So is Canada. So is- Quebec is- Quebec-"

Quebec wasn't fine. Quebec had gotten shot through the heart. He'd been reborn back in Quebec City, or at least, he should have been. But- no. He needed to hear-

"Quebec's fine. Please. Please, I need you to- snap out of it, Sasky. Please. Please-"

It could have been a minute or it could have been an hour that Alberta sat there pleading with her twin to snap out of his stupor. He'd gone into shock, and she needed to get him out of there. But it was cold outside, and he needed to get some clothes on, and she was-

"…I…"

The single word stopped Alberta's torrent of words, shutting her up completely as she stared with desperate hope into those dulled green eyes.

"…F…failed…"

Alberta's hands dropped to his shoulders, a desperate smile on her face. She was so scared, scared for him, scared for- for-

"You didn't fail. You didn't. I'm- Corvus is dead. Corvus is dead and I'm free. We're all- We're all gonna be fine, Sasky. Cal and Eddy and Slate and Onty and BC and- and Manny and me and you and- we're all gonna be fine, Sasky, you didn't fail, please don't say you failed, please, please please- **please don't cry-"**

Green eyes filled with tears, and Alberta pulled him in for a tight hug, shuddering at how cold his body felt, at how rough the T-shirt was under her hands. His arms came up, slowly and hesitantly, wrapping around her, tears staining into the fabric of her bloody cowgirl outfit as the twins clung on to each other for dear life in the midst of the storm around them.

His broad shoulders heaved, and Alberta's heart broke afresh.

"It's not your fault. It's not your fault. You didn't fail. You didn't fail-"

She chanted the words, the mantra coming from somewhere else, somewhere outside of herself. She didn't know what she was saying, only that Saskatchewan was hurting and it wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault at all.

Distantly Alberta heard the sound of shouting and the sound of booted feet running. She couldn't take her eyes off her shaking twin, his dull green eyes piercing into her own and riveting all her attention on him.

The booted feet stomped up behind her, and Alberta felt the presence of the humans rather than heard it. They were so close; she could feel their souls glowing in the dark, could reach out and touch them if she so desired.

Things were a blur. Her twin was pulled from her arms, the faint sounds of distant shouting filling the air. Boots fell, hands pulled her to her feet. Humans hunched over her twin, watching the rise and fall of his chest, watching his glassy green eyes staring at the ceiling.

Alberta was pulled out of that horrible basement, up the steps, up into the cabin and out the door.

And as she stepped out into the crisp fall air, the bright red STARS helicopter idling on the grass before the cabin, Alberta looked up.

High above their heads, the clouds finally parted, and the autumn sun streamed down from on high.

* * *

 _A/N: So do I win some kind of a prize for most inconsistent fanfic author ever? Nah, probably not._

 _But hey, we're back, and this time, I mean it. This one's the last hurrah before the epilogue! Who's excited for the true ending of this beast? Not me, that's for fucking certain. I can't believe I'm almost done this monster fanfic, but hey, here it is. Despite everything._

 _STARS is the emergency search and rescue helicopter in southern Alberta at least; we're saying they're up north too, because, reasons and stuff._

 _Anyway. Next time: The Epilogue. It's over. Finally. After two years of procrastination, it's finally over._

 _As always, leave a review if you liked it, loved it, hated it, or wonder what the fuck my problem is._


	64. Chapter 64

**Chapter Sixty-Four**

* * *

 _Two days later…_

 _"_ _Today, Alberta stands at a crossroads. The province famous for its dynastic parties, reigning unchecked for decade upon decade, is currently lawless, leaderless, and without a clear solution for the chaos that Christopher Craven, or as he is better known, Premier Corvus, has left them with."_

 _The man on the television, one Rex Murphy, paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, looking genuinely disturbed by the next few lines on his teleprompter. He'd penned those words himself not a few days earlier; he always wrote his own material, since nobody else could do his thoughts justice. But these few lines were a first for his career at the CBC and a first in his decades-long work as the chief commentator and pseudo-pundit for their flagship program, The National._

 _"_ _Let me be blunt: Christopher Craven brainwashed his people, controlled them through propaganda and hatred, with an effectiveness that should give any rational person cause to worry. When he is found, he must be brought to justice for his crimes against the people of Alberta and the people of Canada. And if his methods for manipulating the masses prove to be replicable, then he should go down in history as the worst of criminals, the most unimaginable of monsters. For if his methods are indeed repeatable, then the free will of mankind is at risk the world over."_

 _Rex's desk had a TV screen behind it, playing a slideshow of images as he spoke. A simple stylistic choice that had remained consistent through his many years on the program. He looked…disgusted, with the words he'd just said, the implications leaving a haunted look in the man's eyes as he stared down the lens of the camera._

 _The images playing on the TV screen were a collection of snapshots. Premier Corvus leaned over a microphone at a press conference. Images of his sea-green suited Reformationists. Pictures of the battle of Calgary, a single blurry shot of a woman in a cowboy hat flinging a riot cop bodily._

 _"_ _But in the present moment, Alberta has a choice to make. The news reports have covered extensively the persecution of the Reformation party members left behind since Craven's disappearance. We've all seen the footage and the pictures, the images of sea-green cultists being dragged from their dens by the enraged mobs. Alberta is persecuting her enemies with the same fervor that she exterminates rats. And considering the scope of the Reformation party's misdeeds, their rapid transition from a political party to a dictatorial oligarchy, it's hard to sympathize with their plight."_

 _The image on the TV, which was allowed to remain in place, was one of several green-coated Reformation members fleeing a mob of enraged people, all looking forwards in desperate terror, as though that would offer them some salvation. Rex, for his part, simply took another breath and continued, as he always did, as he had for decade after decade._

 _"_ _All of this is, in the end, mere irrelevance. A footnote on the pages of history. As it was for Mussolini and Hitler, the former drug from his villa and beaten to death in the streets by the very people who he lorded over, and the latter, in an act of cowardice, putting a bullet through his own brain. No doubt Corvus will be found, and we will know that he followed in their footsteps, dispatched, perhaps by his own hand, or perhaps by the mob he once controlled so effortlessly. Perhaps we'll never know._

 _More pertinent perhaps is how Alberta will deal with this crisis that has been thrust upon her. Albertans are hardworking and industrious, and I have little doubt that they will rise above this nightmarish catastrophe and emerge just as they were before, hardly worse for wear. They are leaderless, lawless, and without a clear alternative option. An election takes at least a month to organize; who runs the province and makes the decisions in the interim? And moreover, how can we be sure the replacement has no ties to the monster who held the office before?"_

 _Rex looked down the camera and through the television, eyes sunken and hollow. His voice was its characteristic calm and even self, but there was a slight tremor in it; the slightest hint of worry and fear, emotions that rarely crept into his views on the program._

 _"_ _I don't have the answers to these questions. Only time will tell what Alberta will decide to do. And I would suggest that we as a nation do our damndest to help them in their time of need, and to not look down our noses at the province in this, their darkest hour. For The National, I'm Rex Murphy."_

Alberta looked up at the dingy CRT TV in the hospital's small waiting room, watching as Rex's segment faded off the screen. She looked down at her forearm, tracing a thumb over the same patch of skin, over and over again, staring at it. She dug a fingernail in experimentally, nothing happening. Alberta sighed and continued to rub at the patch on her forearm, a space no bigger than a fingernail.

A door off to the side opened, and Alberta lifted her head expectantly; she was the only one in the waiting room at that precise moment, a strange lull in the traffic that usually stampeded through the halls of Fort Macmurray's hospital.

A nurse emerged and smiled softly at her.

"Rose Rutherford?" she said, "Mister Gordon Rutherford and Miss Victoria Douglas are ready to be discharged now. Will you please come with me?"

Alberta stood up, grabbing the bag she'd brought with her, and followed the nurse a short way down the hallway, ignoring the woman's babbling about how fast BC had recovered from a bullet wound and blah blah blah. Alberta didn't care in the slightest.

At the end of the hallway, Alberta looked up and let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. The air was tainted by the smell of antiseptic and the sound of shoes squeaking against aggressively clean floors, but she just ignored all of that.

The nurse led her into a hospital room, the same one that she'd seen a thousand times before. Alberta winced a little at the high-pitched buzzing coming from the CRT TV mounted from the ceiling, showing the same CBC program that she'd been watching in the waiting room; The National, natch. But it wasn't that she cared about.

"Hey sis." BC said, voice sounding….quiet and subdued.

The nurse just nodded a few times. "You've brought their clothes?"

Alberta nodded, eyes locked on Saskatchewan. He was just lying on his bed- it honestly looked like he'd gone to sleep, but she knew that wasn't the case. She was honestly just grateful they'd put BC and Saskatchewan in the same room.

"I- yeah, I got 'em." Not a lie; Alberta had practically turned Calgary upside-down to find their suitcases, but once she had, she'd been sure to throw them in the cab of her truck before driving all the way up here. Blasting loud music the entire way, of course, lest she start actually thinking about what had transpired mere days before.

BC got up off the bed and walked over without another word, taking the clothes from Alberta's hands and walking into the bathroom to get changed out of her hospital gown. The door closed with a click, and Alberta looked at the nurse.

"Can, uh…Can we get a moment of privacy, please?" she said, looking back to her twin and walking towards him, his clothes in her bag.

The nurse just nodded, leaving and closing the door behind her, and Alberta approached the gurney, looking down at her forearm for a moment and then back at her twin.

Saskatchewan had sat up slowly, looking her in the eyes. He seemed smaller, more subdued somehow. Alberta sat down on the gurney next to him, handing his clothes without a word.

They sat like that in silence, Alberta turning her back as he got changed into his regular clothes. He let out a small noise as soon as he was done, a huff of air more than anything else, and Alberta turned back around, looking into her twin's eyes.

She opened her mouth, only for Saskatchewan to just shake his head. Alberta fell silent, sighing and walking over to her brother and putting an arm around his shoulder. They waited like that, Saskatchewan lifting his arm to sling it over his twin's shoulder too, until BC finally emerged from the washroom, her plain hospital gown slung over her arm.

"Let's go home." Alberta said quietly.

* * *

The drive from Fort MacMurray was quiet, with Alberta only occasionally fiddling with the radio only to turn it off again a few minutes later. All three provinces were too lost in their own thoughts to bother talking much, and the scenery rolled by for hour after hour as Alberta drove southwards, retracing a path she'd clearly ridden many times before.

Somewhere around Three Hills, though, Alberta spoke up.

"Sasky?" she said quietly, keeping her eyes on the road in front of her.

"Hm?"

Alberta let go of the wheel with her right arm, extending it towards him, palm-up. The truck continued to rumble steadily down the straight country road, the prairie rolling off into infinity all around them, a giant circle that extended to the horizon.

"Can- There's something on my arm, there. Can- I'm not going crazy, right? You can see the crow?"

Saskatchewan wasn't in much of a mood to talk, but the question was such a confusing one that he couldn't help but look down at Alberta's forearm.

Nothing. Some veins, maybe; but otherwise, it was just a smooth expanse of Alberta's pale skin, unmarked and unblemished by anything.

"Crow?"

"There's a crow…like, a tattoo or a drawing of a crow. I can't wash it off, I can't scratch it off, I can't- it's just. On my arm. You can see it, right? Right? I didn't notice it until yesterday…I think- I think it appeared on my arm after I- Y'know. To Corvus…"

Her voice started to quiver a bit, sounding like it was going to break.

"You can see the crow, right?" Alberta said, keeping her eyes locked on the road ahead.

Saskatchewan took another look down at the smooth expanse of skin on Alberta's arm. Nothing. Not so much as a pockmark or a discolouration. Not even a smudge of ink or a stain.

"…Yes." He replied softly.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Okay, so I like Rex Murphy. Sue me. He's bae._

 _One more chapter, guys. One more. And then the epilogue._

 _God damn do I keep dragging this out. Anyway, I'm going on a kayaking trip for a week, so I figured it was only fair to drop this update before I pissed off on you guys._

 _Thanks for sticking along with me for this entire crazy epic._

 _As always, if you liked it, leave a review! All of them really help, and feedback is the best way to tell me you liked it! It also encourages more frequent updates._


	65. Chapter 65

**Chapter Sixty-five**

* * *

Calgary woke up screaming.

The city sat up, panting and shaking. He was drenched in sweat, shivering in the cold night air. He looked up; his room away from home. Alberta's house. His own bed in Alberta's house. His room in Alberta's home was much smaller than his room in his own house down south, but that hadn't stopped him from decorating it to suit. He looked up at his painting of the sun gleaming off the Rockies, obscured in the nighttime gloom by the moonlight filtering in through the windows, and he sighed.

Another nightmare. Another one.

He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. Corvus was dead and gone, but…he was still alive in Calgary's mind. In Calgary's nightmares, the premier lived on, still tormenting him, still doing unspeakable things to his brother and sister and himself.

He shuddered a little, pulling his pyjama shirt out in front of him and looking down fearfully. A shuddery breath he must have been holding escaped in relief when Calgary saw no scars or pieces of metal poking out of his chest.

He was fine.

His heart was still beating.

The brunette swung his feet off the bed and onto the floor, standing up in his pyjamas and shaking. He didn't often wear clothes to bed, but for some reason sleeping in the buff left him feeling terribly exposed; like a monster that didn't exist was going to come and rip him out of bed.

Or rather, a monster that had existed not too long ago.

Calgary reached over on the nightstand to grab his glasses. He pushed them on his face and sighed; right now, he couldn't be bothered putting in his contact lenses. The other thing he grabbed was his phone to check the time- 3:42 AM. Well, fuck.

He stood up and walked towards the door, stopping to look at the framed photo that hung just adjacent to it. Himself and Ralph Klein, his old mayor and the province's old premier, both in cowboy hats and enjoying some time together at the Stampede.

"God, buddy. Wish you were still with us. You'd know what to do…" Calgary murmured to himself, swallowing a lump of emotions and stepping out of his room in his bare feet. Ralph would've known just how to straighten this whole mess out. He…he always had, right? Right? Humans fucked up, Premier Klein was no exception, but…

Calgary shook his head and pushed his bedroom door open. Ralph was gone, and he wasn't coming back. All he could do was…well, look forwards. And try to move past what had happened.

Calgary's plan was to put on a pot of coffee and mess with his phone until the sun rose, and then…he didn't know. Anything but going back to bed and meeting Corvus again in his dreams. Or listening…listening to the dreams of his people.

Calgary shivered. The whole province was fucked up, and it was gonna take a long time for everyone to get back to normal.

He started down the stairs to get to the kitchen on the main floor, and raised an eyebrow when he realized the lights were already on downstairs. There wasn't any sound from down there, and it wasn't like his little sister to leave the lights on.

Calgary walked down the last few steps and turned into the wood-paneled kitchen, sleek modern appliances gleaming at him from their old-school mahogany settings. The granite countertop had the remnants of the pizzas they'd all had for dinner on it, he noted dimly- the all-meat one was long gone, and all that was left was two slices of vegetarian.

Alberta was standing over the convection stove, stirring something in a saucepan slowly and rhymically. Her long blonde hair fell in a curly mess over the back of the bathrobe she'd thrown on, standing in the kitchen in her bare feet in silence.

One of her arms was wrapped tight around the shoulder of her twin brother, leaned into her side and not saying a word. The twins were just…stood there. And were it not for the slow, steady grinding of the spoon against the Teflon, one could have mistaken the pair for statues.

"Can't sleep either, eh?" Cal said flatly, rubbing his eyes and going over to start the coffee machine. The twins broke apart, both of them turning in unison to look at him, their faces both equally blank. The synchrony would have been creepy if Calgary wasn't completely used to it.

He glanced at one, and then the other, and then into the tray for the coffee grinds. Which was empty, because Alberta usually went to Tim Hortons instead of making it herself. Fuck. Calgary simply opened the cupboard below the coffee machine, rooting around for that can of Tim Hortons dark roast that he knew for sure she had in there, patiently waiting for some kind of a reply from the twins, and knowing he might never get one.

The scraping of spoon against Teflon resumed, a quiet grinding in the peaceful stillness of the kitchen.

A peaceful stillness Calgary was about to royally buttfuck, because Alberta didn't have preground coffee. She had fucking beans. God DAMN it.

"We…Sasky had a nightmare. And so did I." Alberta said flatly, still staring down at whatever the fuck she was making without looking over at her city. Which was probably good, because he'd just emerged from the depths of the cupboard with a coffee grinder in one hand and a can of Dark Roast beans in the other.

Calgary nodded and plugged the grinder in. "…Yeah. Me…Me too." He said quietly.

He glanced over at the twins and opened his mouth to say something about the noise, only for the words to die in his throat. They were both looking at him, and Alberta just offered him her hands, pulling him in close and wrapping him up in a tight hug.

Calgary didn't even hesitate. He just stepped forward and embraced her back, closing his eyes.

"This is so fucked up…" He mumbled, "You're my fucking little sister. This is my job. Not yours."

"You're still my city," Alberta replied, an uncharacteristic softness in her voice, "I…I had a duty to you. I failed you. I failed you both." She said quietly.

The steel swirled against the Teflon once more, as Saskatchewan stirred the saucepan, carefully and gently. He looked over at Calgary, green eyes sunken and haunted. The city could only imagine at the hellish things he'd seen in his dreams.

"S'not your fault." The brunette replied, closing his ice-blue eyes and clutching his little sister tight. He wished they were home, at his house, in his city. Where he could…could sense her soul, glowing in the darkness next to him, even with his eyes closed.

Alberta pulled away and took his hand, pulling him away from the coffee and towards her twin, pulling them both close to her. Calgary looked down at the saucepan, the smell of chocolate rolling strongly at the mixture.

Pudding. It looked like pudding, at least to his untrained eye. They were making chocolate pudding at three in the morning.

"Is that-"

"Hot chocolate." Saskatchewan replied, his voice gruff and clipped. The first words he'd spoken since Calgary walked in.

Calgary leaned into his province, closing his eyes and listening to the steady scraping. As chocolate swirled over the Teflon, guided round and round by the spoon.

Alberta hummed a single note softly to herself, and then another and another, a strange, wordless tune that seemed to rock along to the beat of the spoon. And in Calgary's bones, he knew the tune. The wordless, nameless melody. Their Land's Song. And he joined her, letting the melody wash over him as they hummed the same song together. His people were a distant rumbing in his mind, the song of the prairie resonating through his bones.

The land's song was always a comfort for their kind. Their minds and souls were the creation of man, shaped by their hands and molded to fit; but their bodies and hearts, those were shaped by the earth herself, formless clay shaped lovingly into them. And she reminded them of their debt to her, every second of every day, her Song resonating in their bones.

Alberta and Calgary hummed to the tune of the waving prairie grass as the coyotes in the distance laughed at the moon, the mice hiding from the owls, the wind blowing softly through the wheat. The deer bedded down in the ditches by the Range Roads in their innumerable crisscrossing patterns; the stars whirling overhead, the moon casting a shadow over the glacial erratics abandoned thousands of years before on the plains.

The song Calgary was hearing changed a little. There was another voice, humming with them; a song so similar to theirs, it made his heart ache. Saskatchewan had joined them, softly humming his own Song, the notes of his melody blending perfectly with theirs. The prairie rumbled beneath all three of them, vast and endless.

When Calgary opened his eyes again, the mixture in the pan was completely runny. He listened to the last few notes of their song fade into the distance, eyes locked on the swirling of the spoon. It wasn't often that he got the chance to do that; to simply hum along to the melody that he'd known all his life, however faintly and distantly.

Saskatchewan looked at his twin and tapped the spoon on the side of the pan, setting it aside. He gestured at the glowing controls on the convection top, a wordless request that Alberta understood completely. She reached out and tapped a spot to switch it off, then looked at Calgary expectantly.

"Can you get some mugs?"

"Yeah, alright."

He moved away stiffly, taking a deep breath. Why did he feel so cold all of a sudden?

Calgary picked out three mugs of roughly equal sizes from Alberta's sizeable cupboard and carried them over to the saucepan. He didn't bother asking why the twins had decided to make their cocoa the old-fashioned way, in a saucepan on the stove and stirring in chocolate and sugar; sometimes it was best not to question.

Alberta's eyes were fixed on a spot on her forearm, leaning against the kitchen island. She'd pulled away from her twin, letting Saskatchewan pour out the contents of the pan into each mug. He scraped the spoon into the mixture where he needed to, carefully directing the flow so most of it ended up in the mugs and not on the counter.

Calgary leaned over to look at his sister's arm- nothing. Pale skin, unmarked and unblemished.

"Sis?"

She looked up.

"You okay?"

Alberta shook her head, reaching out and grabbing her mug. Her brothers followed suit, all three personifications walking around the kitchen counter to get to the barstools set into the side, all three of them sitting next to each other.

"What's…what's wrong?" He asked quietly, looking down at the spot on Alberta's arm. She kept touching at it with her free hand, letting the steam rise off her cocoa.

Alberta looked up, blue eyes piercing into Calgary's soul.

"I killed Corvus." She said flatly.

"I know. I have no idea how you did it, but you did." He said, a note of praise in his voice. She'd broken the rules, somehow, some way-

"No. You don't get it. I killed Corvus by… I put him in perspective." She said, the euphemism they all used sounding especially uncomfortable here.

Calgary was glad he didn't have any hot chocolate in his mouth, because he might have choked it up. He slowly put his mug down, hands shaking as he set the ceramic down on the black-speckled granite.

"You. Put him in perspective." Calgary repeated, voice flat.

"Yes."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the gathering. The city had never known anyone who had used that most terrible gift on a human. Not a one. Until now.

"When Eddy and I were teaching you about that, did we- did we tell you about- what it was? What it did?" He said flatly, furrowing his brow."

Alberta shook her head, pulling Saskatchewan in close. "No. You two just…mentioned it. I got the feeling you didn't know yourselves."

Calgary nodded, slowly, mechanically, getting to his feet and walking over to the coffee grinder, where he'd left his phone.

"What are you doing?" Alberta asked, concern on her voice.

"I'm calling Quebec. City. Quebec City. I have his number."

"…Hang on, why do you have-"

"Sister cities, remember? He's my sister." Calgary said, all mirth at that simple statement utterly devoid from his voice. Normally when he mentioned that fact, he got a little chuckle out of it; he loved to call the elder city "Girlfriend" and other stupid things like that.

Not right at that moment though. He pulled up his list of contacts, typing Q-U-E into the search bar and letting it pull up the right one. He tapped the call button and held it up to his ear, sitting down.

The phone rang and rang, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Saskatchewan avoiding Alberta's gaze, and even more pointedly avoiding looking at her forearm. It was like he knew something that Calgary didn't about why his sister kept picking at the skin up by her wrist.

On the second-last ring, a gravelly voice answered.

 _"_ _Allo?"_

Calgary frowned. That didn't sound like Quebec City.

"Quebec?"

 _"_ _Ouais."_

Huh? That wasn't- that didn't sound like QC at all. Whatever. Maybe he just had a cold or something, the stupid bastard was prone enough to them.

"Buddy, it's me. Calgary. Listen, I got a question about, uh, y'know, putting in perspective. What, uh, what does that do to the personification who does that to a human? 'Cause I know it does something, but uh, I never-never learned, you know?" Calgary stammered, too tired to honestly care about the fact that it was, like, 6 AM out east.

Silence filled the line for several uncomfortable seconds, and Calgary swallowed, looking over at the twins. Saskatchewan's normally stoic face was betraying a strange nervousness that had Calgary more than a little confused.

 **"** **Tuez-Vous, Calgary."** The person on the other end of the line snapped, voice frosty cold and so, so angry, _"J'men Calice._ Euh…Go… _Tabarnak, Anglais…_ Go fucking die. Just go die. I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. Go get some of that rat poison you love so much, make a nice little pile of it on your steak, and eat the entire fucking thing, you- you- you-"

Calgary hung up, shaking. The phone hit the counter, and he curled up against the counter, face in his hands and eyes squeezed shut. He swallowed a lump of tears that had rammed its way to the front of his throat. Fuck.

That wasn't Quebec City.

That was just _Quebec._

Guilt. So much guilt. He deserved the nightmares mocking him for what he'd done. For the perverse mockery of the Stampede he'd made, himself. For what he'd allowed to happen to Quebec. Maybe he should just- just end it. He still had Corvus's…Corvus's revolver. But…it wouldn't do anything. It wouldn't help. He'd just come back. Every. Single. Time. He wasn't allowed to die. He would never be allowed to die. Not now, not ever.

He wished he could. Just…make it all-

A firm hand planted itself on his shoulder.

"Calgary."

Two voices, both in unison. Calgary looked up, tears trailing down his face. He met their gaze, watching as Saskatchewan got up from his seat to sit on the opposite side of Calgary. Both sides, hemming him in. He didn't deserve their comfort-

"Cal." Alberta's voice was firm, and he stared into her eyes, blue on blue-

"It's not your fault."

Yes. Yes it was. It was _all_ his fault. He- he wasn't the hero. He was the bad guy. He'd been the bad guy right up to the end. He fought Edmonton to try and get the mic off of him. He- he ordered Canada's explosive vest. He'd personally selected the bull from his own stock on the Stampede Ranch. That was his longhorn, for fuck's sake. The entire symphony of madness was _his fault._

He was crying again, crying quietly, and Alberta pulled him in close, wrapping him in a tight hug. It hurt. It physically hurt. He just- he just wanted-

The fucking phone was ringing again, and Calgary hated it so much. It was Quebec. Calling back to scream at him more. To make his life hell-

Saskatchewan picked it up, face schooled back to stoicism. He pressed the button and held it up to his ear, swallowing a lump in his throat.

"Hello?! Calgary! Calgary, buddy, you there?!" the voice on the other end of the line was unfamiliar to Saskatchewan, but then, he didn't talk to the Eastern cities very much. The man on the other end of the line had a noticeable French accent, but it was mild enough to not affect his pronunciation too much. Not like Quebec, whom Saskatchewan was convinced overplayed his accent on purpose half the time.

"He's there. This is Saskatchewan speaking. What can I do for you?"

"Put Calgary on the fucking line, flatlander. I don't have time for you or your nonsense. My IDIOT FUCKING BROTHER answered my phone for me and- Look, just put him on the line."

Quebec City sounded like he'd turned away from the phone to shout those words at Quebec, and Saskatchewan was secretly in agreement. He nodded, even though the Capital couldn't see, and offered the phone to Calgary, hunched into Alberta's side.

"S'for you. It's Quebec City."

Calgary's hands were shaking as he took the phone and held it up to his ear, still clung onto Alberta's side.

"Allo? Calgary? Listen, I'm so sorry. I just- Quebec stayed the night and we both fell asleep on the couch, and he answered my phone, and I'm so fucking sorry-"

"S'okay, buddy…" Calgary said quietly, leaning into Alberta.

"No. No it's not okay. YOU'RE not "okay", and I know that better than anyone. No, don't say anything. Look, Montreal was a basket case for the longest time after that- that shit with the FLQ went down. I know- I know people. We'll get you help. You won't have to go through what I had to go through alone, brother."

Brother.

Calgary swallowed a fresh lump of tears.

"What about Eddy?"

"Edmonton? We'll get him help too. I know- Therapists, I know- I know doctors. We'll get you the best help, brother, the best. I'm so sorry about Quebec. I heard- I heard what he said, and-"

The sound of Quebec City's voice was harried and panicked. He was forcing his voice to stay level and even, but there was an undercurrent of anxious fear.

"Where are you? You're not alone, are you?"

"No."

"Who's with you? Saska- Sask- Rectangle boy, it's too fucking early for English, _calice-_ Who else?"

"Alberta. Eddy's upstairs, asleep. I think- BC and Manitoba are in the house too, they're in the basement-"

"Good. Good, that's good. Stay with them, do you understand me? I'm- We're coming out there. We'll help you. I'm not letting another of our kind suffer through the shit I had to deal with alone."

Calgary just breathed out a sigh and closed his eyes. Alberta's fingers tangled in his hair, and he just…hurt. He felt his eyes starting to drift closed, against his will. The adrenaline from his nightmare had worn off, and here he was, in his pyjamas in the kitchen, slipping off the barstool.

"Which place are you going to be for the next few days? No, don't answer that. Stay with Alberta. You're in Edmonton? We'll come to you."

"We?"

"Me, Montreal…Who else-? I'll bring everyone. Everyone who matters. We'll be there for you. Saskatoon. Regina. Vancouver- Everyone. Everyone. I'm sorry I couldn't- I wasn't there to help sooner. But I saw- I saw what was happening on TV, and all I could do was watch, and I'm so sorry, Calgary. We- _we_ are sorry. We'll come. We'll help."

We? Who the fuck was we? God, he was too tired for this shit. Calgary was just so tired. Exhaustion…he just wanted to sleep. It was almost 5 AM and he hadn't had a good sleep in…what felt like weeks.

"M'fuckin' wiped…" he mumbled, shivering against Alberta and just…just wanting to curl up in a ball. And sleep. Forever. So he never had to deal with anything else ever again.

"Go sleep. It's- _Tabarnak,_ it's nearly five in the morning out there. Go get some sleep, and put Alberta on the phone. I need to talk to her."

Calgary did as he was told, stiffly passing the phone to Alberta and looking up. The couch. He wasn't- He couldn't drag himself back to his room. Just…There. He didn't want to be alone. He got off his stool and stumbled weakly over to the sofa, flopping on the couch and curling up in a ball.

"Hello?" Alberta said nervously.

"Is he alright?" Quebec City sounded genuinely worried, and Alberta breathed a sigh of relief.

"He's...He's curled up on the couch. I'm gonna get him a blanket. What do you need?"

"Where are you? South, north, what city? I'm bringing- everyone. Everyone who matters. You- You and yours- You can't be alone right now. That- You will destroy yourselves if you wall off from the rest of the country."

"….Don't invite Toronto, for fuck's sake. And we're at my house in Edmonton." Alberta said, groaning.

Quebec City made a deeply offended noise.

"You have some nerve even _suggesting_ I'd invite that asshole to a delicate situation such as this. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Alberta sighed. "I- Look man, I don't know anymore. Everyone around me is falling apart. BC won't talk to me, Manny won't talk to me, Calgary's a basket case, Edmonton spends all his time staring at the wall, and Sasky-"

Her voice choked up. She barely even knew this fucker. What the hell was she doing, dumping her problems on him?

"…I understand." The city said carefully, "It…it will take time to heal. We will be there to help you. All of us. The whole country."

"And why the fuck do you care?" Alberta snapped, digging her own nails into her forehead, "What the fuck do you Frenchies care about us out west? You've never fucking cared about us. Not you, not Ontario, ESPECIALLY not Ottawa-"

"I care because whatever happened to you made you so insane that you thought desecrating my province's heart was an acceptable thing to do. I care because I've walked the path of madness you got swallowed up by. I care because Calgary is my brother and Edmonton is a capital just like me. And…I care because not caring is what created Corvus in the first place. I see that now." The Capital said flatly, voice utterly blank of emotion.

Alberta took a few deep breaths, trying to calm the swirling storm of thoughts in her mind.

"Then prove it."

"I intend to."

Silence dragged through the air for several minutes after that exchange, both personifications lost in their own thoughts. Alberta wanted to hang up and just end the conversation, but a lingering glance at her forearm stayed her hand. She had so much going on right now in her life, and just- that fucking mark. It was driving her crazy. She just needed- closure. She needed closure for it.

She stared at it. It was in the shape of a crow, wings spread as though about to take off. It was drawn in simple black shapes, a single mass of black, both somewhat abstract and hyperrealistic. It seemed to shift and change the longer she stared at it, like a tattoo moving under her skin.

"…Quebec?" she croaked, the word feeling weird on her tongue. That name was for the province, not for him. But…

"Ouais?"

"I….need to ask something. Just. For me, you know?"

"What is it?"

His words were said in a manner as though he was distracted, and Alberta could hear the sound of flipping paper in the background, as though he was rifling through his files.

"When our kind, um…When we…put a human in perspective-"

"Euh? Say that again-"Putting in perspective-?"

"I, uh, maybe it's something different in French? It's- When you put your hands on a human's head, when you-"

"Oh. That? Why do you want to know about that? Didn't- hasn't anyone told you about it already?"

"No. I never- I never learned."

Quebec City went silent for several minutes, processing that information.

"Why do you want to know?" He asked, unease plain in his voice.

"I…I killed Corvus." Alberta said quietly, looking over at Saskatchewan. To her surprise, he wasn't meeting her gaze. She swallowed and grabbed his hand, curling her fingers under his palm and squeezing tight.

The phone line was dead silent. Alberta could almost imagine the puzzle pieces coming together in the city's head, as he realized what she was trying to imply with her words.

"You killed your premier. By…what did you call it? Putting him in perspective? You killed him with that?" The city sounded aghast, as though Alberta had committed cardinal sin.

She swallowed.

"Yes."

"He's dead. By your hands."

"Yes."

"...Is…is there…a marking? On your arm, or so?" Nervousness, now. He was nervous. Why was he nervous?

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"It's a…it looks like a crow. I don't- why is it there? Why? Can I- can I get rid of it, or-"

Quebec City went silent for several seconds.

"…That…that marking. You…No. You can't get rid of it. It will be with you as long as you live. It is your reminder of what you have done."

Alberta stared at her cooling cocoa.

"Look, I've never- I've never done it myself, alright? But France has. He's done it before. And he said, uhm. He said…The marks…It's…It's because you've essentially devoured the human's soul."

Alberta squeezed Saskatchewan's hand hard enough for him to wince in pain.

"Look, I don't…this is all secondhand from Quebec, alright? France told him, he told me. We've never done it to a human. There's never been a need. The…what do you call them? Rules? The Rules? They forbid it, so, so we've never done it. So… I can't say for sure."

Alberta released her grip on Saskatchewan's hand.

"So I devoured Corvus's soul."

"Well, I mean…if it's any comfort to you, that's…I couldn't have picked a more deserving scumbag to do it to. And, it's not…something you can entirely control. It's not something you can just, turn on by deciding to do it. At least. Not from what I know." His voice was short and clipped, sentences shoved out with haste as the words passed by his brain entirely.

"Is that- is that everything? Do you have any more questions?"

"No. Thank you." Alberta said flatly, feeling empty and hollow.

"Alright. Sure. Go- Go get some sleep, if you can."

Alberta nodded and hung up, letting Calgary's phone rest on the counter.

She looked up at her twin, taking a breath. Sasky. He brother. Flesh of her flesh, by her side since the very beginning.

Alberta pulled him in close, letting the marked arm lay faceup on the countertop.

"Sasky."

"Yes?"

"Can you…just…point to where the mark is? Just, put your finger on it. Please."

She could feel him shifting in his chair, swallowing more that normal. He looked away.

"Can't you see it?"

"Just…please. Please. I need to know I'm not going crazy."

Saskatchewan's hand was shaking as he lifted it up, fingers slowly curling and leaving his pointer finger all alone, exposed.

Alberta followed the line of his gaze, watching as his green eyes darted all up and down her arm. Watching as they didn't lock onto any one spot. And his hand, his hand was pointing vaguely in the direction of the mark; vaguely. Her brother had a good memory and was remarkably perceptive.

His finger was pointing at a spot about a half-inch above the actual mark.

"You can't see it, can you?"

"I-"

"Why did you lie to me yesterday?"

Saskatchewan let out a long, shaky breath.

"You…we…"

His voice cut out, a small, wordless whimper escaping his closed lips. He leaned into her, letting his head rest against hers, silent frustration rolling off him.

Alberta just nodded and hugged him back.

"You lied because you didn't want me to thing I was crazy."

Saskatchewan nodded slowly, hair rubbing against her head.

Not for the first time, Alberta was glad she wasn't alone.

"Okay." She said softly, glancing down at her cocoa. It was stone cold.

"You tired?" She said softly, eyes still staring at her cup.

Nod.

"Let's just…the other couch. It folds out. I don't…I don't want to leave Cal alone."

Nod.

"Alright. Let's go get the blankets."

The two of them got up in unison, tiptoeing back up the steps to the top floor. Saskatchewan went into Alberta's room and bundled up the blankets and pillows, and stepped out into the hall to see that Alberta had done the same with Calgary's bedsheets.

The two of them crept back downstairs, Alberta taking a moment to lay the thick down comforter on top of her shivering city, clamping down on an urge to run her fingers through his hair.

They moved the coffee table and pulled the cushions off, tossing them aside without much ceremony. The bed folded out with a few loud snaps that had Calgary shifting a little under his blanket, but once it was over, the silence reigned again.

Alberta threw the blankets on the bed, crawling in with her pillow and closing her eyes. On the other side, Saskatchewan shifted around, trying to get comfortable.

They didn't say anything to one another. Alberta just closed her eyes and let the exhaustion wash over her, spiralling down into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

 _A/N: This was intended to be just one chapter and then the epilogue, but, well, as you can see, it got a tiny bit longer than I was anticipating. I also wasn't intending it to get this emotional, but sometimes you can't control your characters._

 _What I can say is that we're past the denouement and on the road to recovery. Things get better from here, I promise. Next chapter will be_ much _happier._

 _If I screwed up the Quebecois, please correct me! Aki, the friend who translates for me, isn't Quebecois herself, so when it came to the swearing I had to rely on doctor google and not much else. If anyone wants to contribute a better translation, I'll get it fixed right away._

 _Also! Pigskin Mirror is back. If you want a different flavour of crazy, go give it a read! I've already got three new chapters posted and I'm updating it a lot more frequently now._

 _As always, let me know your thoughts! Leave a review if you liked it, hated it, or want me to eat a steak covered in Warfarin myself!_


	66. Chapter 66

**Chapter Sixty-Six**

* * *

 _A couple hours later, in Montreal…_

 _"Qu'est-ce que t'est en train de foutre?"_

("What the hell are you doing?")

Quebec munched on his French Toast, quirking an eyebrow at his city. Quebec City had his suitcases spread out in the kitchen and was rather busy getting his things packed in them in as small a space as possible. And all the while, he kept pausing and tapping yet another message into his phone, occasionally scowling or hissing out another swear word.

"Je vais aller aider ma soe- Calgary. Je vais à Calgary. Non, ne me regarde pas comme ça, connard. Mange ton toast et tais-toi."

("I'm going to help my sist- Calgary. I'm going to Calgary. No, don't give me that look, you jackass. Just eat your damn toast.")

Quebec swallowed his lump of French toast and blinked several times, eyes widening behind his glasses. It was eight AM, he was still in his pyjamas, and France was cooking breakfast for him for the first time in…decades, actually.

France looked up from the grille and quirked an eyebrow.

"T'avais pas dit que je risquais qu'on me coupe la tête parce que je suis Francophone et dans leur province?"

("Really now? Didn't you tell me that they were liable to cut my head off for being French and in their province?")

Quebec City groaned aloud and clapped both hands over his face, letting his phone tumble into his suitcase on top of a pile of jeans. He really didn't have time to deal with all of this.

"Ouais, j'avais dit ça, connard, et Montréal a fait de même. Mais le danger a passé et je dois y aller parce que Calgary - écoute, ils ont besoin d'aide. Ils ont tous vraiment, mais vraiment besoin d'aide. Alors tais-toi et - la ferme. Je serai de retour dans une semaine ou quelque chose comme ça. Je n'en sais pas trop, ça dépend de comment grave la situation elle est."

("Yes I did, you stubborn asshole, and so did Montreal. But the danger's over now, and I need to get there, because Calgary- look, they need help. All of them really, really need help. So stop talking and- shut yer trap. I'll be back in a week or something like that. I don't know about that, that depends how bad the situation is.")

Quebec's face darkened, and he turned the barstool to face his Capital, turning away from his meal.

"Et pourquoi, putain pourquoi, c'est TOI qui va aller aider, de toute manière? Tu es - ouais bon, t'es la cité jumelle de Calgary. Et puis? On s'en fout d'eux! de toute façon eux ils en foutent de nous-"

("And why, why the fuck, are YOU going to help, anyway? You're- okay yeah, you're Calgary's sister city. So what? We don't give a fuck about them! They don't care about us anyway-")

Quebec City was about two seconds from grabbing the nearest piece of furniture and flinging it through the wall in frustration. He took a deep breath, shaking with rage, and did his damndest to contain it. Not now. Not fucking now.

"Ecoute, connard. Je le fais parce que... parce qu'il faut que quelqu'un le fasse. Et ce n'est pas que moi. Dés que Montréal tombe du nid, il vient aussi. Vancouver et Victoria ont déjà pris l'avion il y a une heure. Winnipeg et Saskatoon- j'irai les chercher en chemin dés qu'ils seront révéillés. Donc c'est pas que moi et on va le faire parce que... eh ben c'est parce que je sais ce que ça fait. Toi aussi. Montréal aussi. Nous avons tous..."

("Listen, idiot. I'm doing this because- Because someone has to. And it's not JUST me. As soon as Montreal rolls his lazy ass out of bed, he's coming too. Vancouver and Victoria were already on a plane an hour ago. Winnipeg and Saskatoon- I'll get them on the way when they're actually awake. But it's not just me. And because- Well, because I've been there. So have you. So has Montreal. We've all…")

Quebec City's voice trailed off, looking down at the floor.

He was just so fucking tired.

All this nonsense had started over two weeks ago. Since then, he'd been in Montreal and not his own city, babysitting fuckin' France to keep him from sneaking away and trying to pull off some heroic shitstunt that was sure to get him killed.

According to Montreal, France's plane had landed and he'd sprung into action the second the wheels had touched the ground, since nations tended to glow like roaring bonfires on a city's mental radar. And it really didn't take a genius to figure out what the sudden appearance of France in Canada when Quebec was away doing something fucking stupid in Alberta meant.

It meant, of course, that Quebec was in trouble, and that Papa thought he was going in to save him. Without any kind of fucking backup. But of course France couldn't have brought backup; he was planning on mounting his rescue attempt as, essentially, a human citizen; to mount a rescue attempt as a nation would be a foreign power interfering in what were explicitly Canadian affairs.

So Montreal had pulled off some stupid heroics of his own, essentially redlining his engine and slamming his way into the main terminal so he could tackle the nation to the ground and try his damndest to talk some sense into him. He'd been partially successful, but France hadn't been fully convinced of the full stupidity of his plan until Quebec City had turned up to help his brother.

And that brought them to now, at that precise moment, as France made French Toast in Montreal's kitchen. Canada was upstairs, sleeping; the first thing the nation had done was make a beeline for his papa. Understandable, really.

Quebec just rolled his eyes in response to his capital's words. He opened his mouth to sa more, only for his capital to hold up a hand and start walking away.

"J'men Calice," he snapped, and Quebec just scowled and turned back to his breakfast.

Quebec City clomped up the stairs, already yelling, _"Hé-oh, Montréal! Reveille-toi, espèce de connard! Viens avec moi!"_ and leaving the kitchen in a brief moment of silence.

France scraped another piece of finished French Toast off the gridle and scooped it lovingly onto Quebec's plate, cringing a little internally as his beloved son proceeded to half-drown it in maple syrup and dig in, as though he hadn't already had five pieces by himself in the last half hour.

"Quebec?"

"Ouais, papa?"

"Je suis désolé. Désolé de ne pas avoir pu... Je suis navré que je n'aie pas pu t'aider. J'était vraiment prêt à leur foncer dans la barraque et de casser des geules pour te ramener à la maison, mais-"

("I'm sorry. Sorry to not have been able to... I'm sorry I couldn't help you. I was fully prepared to run in there (lit. storm the house) and start breaking faces to get you back home, but-")

"Papa, c'est bon, je t'avais déjà dit que c'est bon. Tu n'étais pas là. Tu n'as pas vu ce que j'ai vu. J'ai vraiment regretté de t'avoir appelé parce que... ben j'ai paniqué et quand j'ai pu y réfléchir, j'ai réalisé que j'aurais pu de mettre en grave danger. Alors... je suis désolé, moi aussi."

("Papa, it's okay, I've already told you that it's fine. You weren't there. You didn't see what I saw. I really regretted calling you because… well I panicked, and then when was able to think about it later, I realized I could have put you in serious danger. So…I'm sorry as well.")

France just chuckled, a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

"Me voici, moi qui a déçu mes fils, et tu t'excuses auprès de moi. Je suis juste heureux que vous soyez tous sains et saufs."

("Here I am, I who disappointed my sons, and you're apologizing to me. I'm just glad you're both sane and healthy.")

Quebec shrugged helplessly.

"Sains et saufs, c'est relatif. Je crois que tout va s'arranger maintenant mais... ouais. Je n'irai pas à l'ouest pour un bon moment après tout ça, bon Dieu."

("'Okay' is relative. I think it'll all work itself out now, but… yeah. I'm not going west for a good long time after this, god.")

France nodded.

"Je ne peux pas t'en vouloir. Je ferais la même chose si j'étais toi."

("I can't blame you. I would do the same thing if I were you.")

With that, France turned back to the bag of bread and discovered, to his dismay, that it was empty.

"On dirait qu'il n'y a plus de pain. Tu veux des crêpes au lieu?"

("It seems we're out of bread. Do you want some crepes instead?")

"Oui, s'il-te-plaît!"

* * *

Voices drifted to him, floating through his blissful, dreamless sleep.

 _-must be tired, look at them-_

 _-keep it down Vic…they've been through some shit…._

Calgary didn't want to open his eyes. He just…wanted the voices to stop. To leave him alone.

 _-are you making?_

 _His favourite….and eggs…what do you….Alberta wants?_

Alberta probably wanted them to shut the fuck up, whoever they were. Calgary certainly did.

A sharp clattering of pans stabbed through the last wisps of Calgary's dream, pitching him kicking and screaming into the waking world. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking a few times as he stared up at the ceiling. Fucking assholes. His shoulder ached faintly; somehow he'd managed to fall asleep curled in a ball, when usually he liked to sprawl out over as much of the bed as possible.

There was that crusty shit in the corners of his eyes, and he reached up to clean it out of his eyes, his entire body feeling at once wide awake and consumed by torpor.

The voices had stopped, and so had the noise. Maybe he'd dreamed the noise. There wasn't anyone down here, anyway….just him, Alberta and Saskatchewan, and some congealing cocoa on the counter.

His blue eyes slowly drifted closed again. God, sleeping for a week sounded so nice…

There was a slam, someone closing a drawer too quick, and the subsequent rattling of all the pans inside it jolted Calgary back from the brink of sleep. Someone swore under their breath, and he sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes.

The afternoon sun streamed through the window, illuminating the kitchen area- and two guilty faces, looking at him apologetically.

"Vicky?" he croaked slowly, blinking in confusion and squinting. That sounded like Victoria's voice, and there sure was a Victoria-shaped blur over there in the kitchen, but he couldn't be sure. And there was someone else stood next to her-

Calgary turned and looked around for his glasses, not seeing them anywhere in his vicinity.

"Where's my glasses?" he slurred, honestly wishing that he could just curl up and go back to sleep.

"Oh, uh. We got them right here. Hang on a sec…"

The blur moved closer, holding something out to him, and as it got closer, the features sharpened. Calgary took the blurry wire frames being offered to him and shoved them on his face, blinking a few times at the man smiling down at him.

"Vancouver?"

Vancouver nodded and scratched the back of his head awkwardly, his sharp features and black hair drawn into an apologetic expression.

"Yeah, it's me, buddy. We're here for ya."

Calgary blinked a few times, turning away from Vancouver to stare at the arm of the sofa.

"…Why?" he asked, voice blank and despondent.

Vancouver raised an eyebrow.

"Uh, did you miss the whole "Psycho premier took over your province" thing? Because I didn't. I just, like, I'm sorry. Cal, I'm so, so, so fucking sorry. I didn't want to leave you guys alone like that, but, fuck man, I was too scared to get in there and, yeah. I just- We're here for you. And so's everyone else."

Calgary sighed and turned so he could get off the couch, flinging the blanket he didn't remember having last night somewhere away from himself. He stood up and rubbed his eyes under his glasses, wandering over into the kitchen to see what Vancouver and Victoria were up to.

Eggs were sizzling in one pan, and next to it, a steak from the freezer, the top still covered in ice. Calgary glanced at the counter next to it, and there was the rest of the package- two more frozen steaks, with no room for them in the pan. Victoria smiled at him sheepishly, poking the steak she was frying like that would help.

"Sorry, Cal. I figured you might want your favourite after all that you guys have been through."

Calgary just nodded, still utterly baffled that Victoria was even there at all. The two cities looked just as tired as him- and a quick glance at the clock meant that there was no way they'd been here all that long.

Calgary just sighed and went over to the fridge and the spice rack, grabbing the steak sauce and spices and a brush to apply the rub. He took the fork over from a grateful Victoria, running the other two steaks in the microwave to defrost them and carefully applied a special rub to all three, including the one still in the pan. This wasn't really the right way to do it, but, well. Fuck it.

Working on a small task like this, with the smell of grilling beef in his nostrils and the soft sizzling in his ears helped take his mind off things. It filled him with some small sense of purpose, taking his mind off the nightmares and the terrible things that had happened.

Next to him Victoria was busy frying up an entire carton of eggs, not exactly scrambling them but doing something close.

"Tryin' out the vegan thing again, eh Vicky?" Cal croaked, the words just right for a snarky quip but the tone completely flat and dead. Next to him, Victoria shifted a little and chuckled awkwardly, her long dress swishing a bit.

"This wouldn't be vegan, Cal." She said pleasantly, sounding a bit like the mother Calgary never had, "I'm making eggs. This would be an ovo-vegetarian, and I'm a vegetarian-"

"Who eats fish. You eat fish." Calgary said flatly, "That's an animal. It's got a face. Ask Alberta and she'll tell you the full evolutionary history of the fuckers, and shit."

Victoria rolled her eyes and muttered something about Sockeye being delectable, and Calgary smirked a little tiny bit.

Vancouver was looking through cupboards beside them, finding the plates and clattering over to the table with his armful of crockery. He wasn't exactly being quiet about it, either, and before long, Alberta and Saskatchewan were rustling from their spots on the couch.

"Cal?" Alberta mumbled, sitting up and stretching, "What's goin' on-?" She opened her eyes and blinked a few times, taking in first Vancouver and then Victoria.

"What're you two doin' here?" She asked, tilting her head and slowly crawling off the folded-out couch. Behind her, Saskatchewan was doing just the same, the twins looking equally bedraggled and sleep-deprived.

Vancouver scratched the back of his head and looked at the ceiling.

"I, uh, y'know. We're like- look, I got a phone call from Quebec City a couple hours ago, and he was basically like, "you guys better get to Alberta's house ASAP because they really need help and I'm not letting Cal go through this garabage by himself" And then he hung up. I mean he was obviously a little more persuasive than that, but the fucker called me at like, five in the morning, so y'know. Anyway, that was a bit of a bitch- you ever tried getting two flights to the same place within an hour while you're on standby?"

"Yes." Alberta said flatly, rubbing her eyes.

"…I mean- Yeah, sure. Anyway, yeah. So Quebec City said, everyone's coming, and I guess here we are."

Vancouver spread his arms and did a little motion of jazz hands to punctuate his point. Alberta just nodded in response. What was there to say, really? Quebec City was sticking his damn nose where it didn't belong. What else was new?

"Oh, and also, you still have BC somewhere in your house, so there's that too," Victoria added, "Speaking as the capital, I'd like my province back now, if you wouldn't mind."

Alberta coughed at the mention of BC, blood turning to icy slush in her veins. What Corvus had done to her sister…Alberta would be amazed if BC ever wanted to talk to her again. She opened her mouth to speak, only for Victoria to hold up a hand.

"I know what your premier did. Don't…look, we'll talk about it later. Right now, I just-"

"Breakfast." Vancouver said, cutting through the muddled mess of a conversation before Victoria could start rambling. "Let's all have something to eat first before we all start talking, because I don't know about you lot, but I haven't eaten anything besides those stupid crackers they give you on the plane and a cup of hot water with something alleging to be coffee in it."

* * *

The rest of the day sped by in a blur. The doorbell seemed to be ringing constantly, this city and that city turning up, jetlagged and beleaguered, but nonetheless there. And the crowd in Alberta's house grew, a crowd of people who were concerned and confused but ready to help in any way they could.

Calgary made his excuses as the doorbell rang again, scooting up the stairs along with his sister and her twin to get dressed and brush his teeth and all the basic things he hadn't done. And, of course, put in his contact lenses, that was also important. Calgary didn't like people seeing him with his glasses on; in fact, he was pretty sure he'd managed to hoodwink the entire East Coast into thinking he didn't even need glasses.

The clothes came first as he sidled into his room, focusing on pulling on something clean and acceptable for company; the first thing that hit his fingers when he pulled the drawer open, which turned out to be red plaid, of course. Fresh boxers followed, jeans and a leather belt with its matching giant fuck-off buckle, white socks, and he certainly looked a lot more like the old Calgary, even if he didn't feel like it.

He caught a look at himself in the mirror and sighed. Those bags under his eyes…He needed sleep and god knew what else. But the first thing that mattered was getting Edmonton out of bed and making sure he knew what was up so he didn't go downstairs half-naked or something.

Calgary knocked on his brother's bedroom door and pushed it open, making sure not to peek inside as he called Edmonton's name. The lights were on, so that was a good sign.

"What do you want, Calgary?" Edmonton sighed, pulling the door open and letting his brother get a good look inside his room, and his giant mural of the wheat fields and the oil derricks in the distance.

"Nothing. I'm just letting you know that, uh, well. We've got company." Calgary looked his brother up and down, "So I was mostly just checking to see if you were actually dressed, which, good."

"Company?" Edmonton echoed, raising an eyebrow, "What's happening?"

The southern city sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "It's a long story. Involving Quebec City and-"

"You called him, didn't you? And he responded by inviting half the country to Alberta's fucking kitchen. Wonderful. That guy really does not know the meaning of subtlety, does he? We really weren't ready for a goddamn party, and now we're hosting one regardless-"

"I don't think it really counts as a party per se?" Calgary said, scratching the back of his head, "They're here to help."

"Help how?" Edmonton growled, "It's not like we're flooded out and we need as many hands as possible to lay sandbags- okay, sorry, I'll lay off the flood analogies. I forgot, okay? Anyway, the point is that I have no idea how they're supposed to help us here, and I don't think they do, either."

"...Well, I mean, they are making us lunch."

"...Lunch?"

"Yeah. There's perogies, I think. Saskatoon's making them."

Edmonton sighed mightily. "Alright, fine. I'll go down and say hello, but only because there's perogies."

* * *

 _A/N: So it's exam week, and I'm super duper tired right now! I need to get back to studying, but first, here's some West Wind because it's been entirely too long since any of us had some of that. I blame university and life in general._

 _Also, to the guest reviewer who wanted to see Flin Flon: I'll see what I can do, it's possible I can work the town in, but I wouldn't hold your breath. I usually try to stick to larger municipalities because there's a lot more there to work with- you gotta have at least a rough idea of who each city is before you sit down and start typing._

 _Anyway, that's about it for now. This chapter was giving me major troubles so I split It into two. Next time we'll see some general goodwill and suchlike. And THEN the epilogue._

 _Oh, and also: Who likes vampires? Nobody? Just me? Alrighty then. I'm working on another little story for Halloween, so keep your eyes peeled for that shit._

 _Finally: French translations are as usual courtesy of my amazing friend Aki. Thanks so much!_

 _If you liked it, leave a review! It really helps me out a lot and gives me the drive to keep writing despite everything going on in my life right now._


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